Commentary: Stop Using Kangaroos for Shoes!

While shopping for pickleball shoes at a popular sporting goods store in downtown Boulder, small talk among shoppers turned into a captivating conversation about kangaroos, as well as sports shoes.

Anything involving pickleball and kangaroos would likely pique anyone’s interest. It started as my sales guy brought out a stack of boxes, opening the one with a Nike swoosh.

“Oh, no, I don’t buy Nike,” I said, swatting at the box to go away. Nike became kryptonite when I heard that the number-one global shoe manufacturer, among others, uses the skin of kangaroos slaughtered mercilessly in the Australian wild to make some soccer cleats.

In mid-March, Nike, along with Puma, announced it will cut corporate ties to the bloodstained commercial kangaroo-killing industry (more on that…