Evolution from “Kangaroos are not shoes” to giving “milk mandate” the boot

(Beth Clifton collage)

Both campaigns dodge dinosaurs

WASHINGTON D.C.––The evolutionary distance between marsupials and placental mammals is currently believed to be about 160 million years,  both having emerged from a common ancestor in the Late Jurassic period,  sharing habitat with Brachiosaurus,  Stegosaurus,  Allosaurus,  and Diplodocus.

The chronological distance between Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle claiming campaign successes on behalf of both kangaroos,  the most prominent marsupial species,  and a pair of the most prominent placental mammals,  specifically both human children and cows,  was only two weeks.

This was also accomplished amid dinosaurs,  figuratively anyhow,  from the old guard in the athletic shoe industry to the old guard of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Kangaroos are not shoes” any more

First,  on May 15,  2025,  Adidas’s chief executive officer Bjørn Gulden personally told Pacelle and the Adidas company annual general meeting that Adidas––the world’s largest athletic shoe maker––has permanently stopped sourcing kangaroo skins for soccer shoes,  the last Adidas product to use kangaroo leather.

(See “Kangaroos are not shoes” campaign boots Adidas into the goal.)

ANIMALS 24-7 had barely reported that news when on May 20,  2025,  Animal Wellness Acton spokesperson Lindsay von Busch emailed that,  “The global athletic shoe giant ASICS has followed suit.”

Stipulated ASICS,  “We are moving toward ending the production of products using kangaroo leather by the end of 2025.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Mizuno was last target

Pledged Von Busch,  “The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action are ramping up efforts to persuade Mizuno — the last major athletic shoe brand still using kangaroo leather — to make the same commitment.”

On May 31,  2025,  just 16 days after the Adidas announcement,  the Financial Times reported that Mizuno too had quit making shoes from kangaroo leather.

“Mizuno alone had upward of 25 shoe models made from kangaroos,”  Pacelle said,  wrapping up a “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” campaign introduced in 2020 with a research report and paper entitled The Moral Footprint of the Athletic Shoe Industry.

(Beth Clifton collage)

False note

“It was a false note,”  Pacelle suggested,  “for Australia to put kangaroos at the center of marketing and tourism promotions,”  featuring a kangaroo in the national coat of arms,  “while maintaining kill quotas for six million kangaroos.”

“There is not enough money in the kangaroo parts trade to employ nearly enough shooters to conduct killing on that scale,”  Pacelle assessed.  “Last year, the shooters killed 1.3 million kangaroos — about 18% of the state quotas.”

Kangaroo hunters typically kill whole kangaroo “mobs” at once.

“The mothers are shot too,”  Pacelle explained.  “That means their dependent joeys are doomed,  left to starve,  or perhaps to be finished off by having their heads slammed against a truck fender or bashed in with a rock.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

“There is still work to do”

Under pressure of the international “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” campaign,  the athletic shoe makers Puma,  Nike,  and New Balance quit buying kangaroo skins in 2023.

The last kangaroo leather shoe makers held out for two years longer.

“There is still work to do,”  Pacelle acknowledged.  “Mizuno must formalize its timeline. Adidas and other companies must honor their pledges.  And Congress must pass the Kangaroo Protection Act to ensure our giant market no longer welcomes the sanitized skins sent our way by the collaboration of clothing companies and commercial shooters.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Milk mandate is tougher target

Pacelle then turned toward a much more difficult campaign rooted right here in the U.S.

Even at peak,  the kangaroo leather trade was only worth about $200 million a year.   Big as it was,  the kangaroo leather business was Late Jurassic mammal-sized compared to the brontosaurus-sized U.S. dairy industry.

The U.S. dairy industry is worth about $39 billion a year,  directly and indirectly employing about three million people:  about 1.5% of total U.S. wage earners.

The U.S. dairy industry is supported in large part by the culturally entrenched belief,  maintained and reinforced by the National School Lunch Program,  that drinking cow’s milk is an essential part of childhood nutrition,  long after children are weaned from their own mothers’ milk.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Cows & human evolution

Neither marsupials nor other placental mammals,  in their long development of distinctly different methods of nursing,  ever evolved a phase that involved nursing from a different species,  let alone species as divergent as cows and humans.

Indeed,  cows and humans last shared a common ancestor about 80 million years ago.  Marsupials and placental mammals had already long since gone their separate ways,  but the vegetarian Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus were still around,  joined by the younger and also vegetarian Iguanodon,  Hadrosaur,  Triceratops,   and Ankylosaur,  as well as by the fiercely carnivorous Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Neanderthals

In view of the evolutionary distance involved,  it is small wonder that inability to digest cow’s milk,  called lactose intolerance,  afflicts from 50% to 70% of Latinos,  60% to 80% of African Americans,  80% to 90% of Native Americans;  and 90% to 95% of Asian-Americans:  altogether,  about a third of all U.S. school children.

(See The USDA “milk mandate”:  a black-&-white issue on school lunch trays.)

Geography and genetics suggest that those of us who can digest cow’s milk are at least partially descended from Neanderthals,  also the genetic source of blue eyes and blond and red hair.

The National School Lunch Program milk mandate,  a Neanderthal throwback requiring that a carton of milk be provided with every federally subsidized school lunch,  originated in 1949 as a way of subsidizing the dairy industry.

Though perhaps well-intended,  the National School Lunch Program milk mandate,  in light of current knowledge about nutrition and health,  was Neanderthal in concept,  albeit lucrative for the dairy industry from top to bottom.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Non-dairy milk options

Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have since July 2023 sought to amend the National School Lunch Program to allow schools to offer “nutritionally appropriate and digestible beverage options,  including non-dairy milk.”

This would seem to be a no-brainer,  something that even a Stegosaurus,  long erroneously believed to have a second pea-sized brain in his butt,  could figure out.

As Pacelle has long argued,  “Symptoms of lactose intolerance — bloating,  gas,  diarrhea,  abdominal pain,  nausea,  and more — can significantly impair a child’s ability to learn and thrive in school.  These symptoms are avoidable with simple changes in beverage policy.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Milk waste did not faze Elon Musk

Further,  as Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have previously pointed out,  USDA research has discovered that “29% of the cartons of milk served in our schools are thrown in the garbage unopened,  sending at least $300 million in tax dollars into the trash.  Another study found that children discard 45 million gallons of milk each year,”  equivalent to the total milk production of about 21,500 Holstein cows.

That data should at least have attracted notice from the Department of Governmental Efficiency,  yet apparently did not faze founding DOGE chief Elon Musk,  known to have posed for photos in a cheesehead hat.

But no $39 billion a year industry,  with many an elected official bought and paid for,  cannot be expected to quickly or easily surrender a schoolroom monopoly on corrupting the diets of youth.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Amendment to milk mandate clears Senate Agriculture Committee

Thus,  while the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee approving a proposed bill normally is not news landing with the thump of a dinosaur’s foot,  it is news and a noteworthy achievement for critics of the school lunch program milk mandate that the committee on June 3,  2025 “passed a bipartisan compromise bill that merges key provisions of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act (S. 222) and the Freedom in School Cafeterias & Lunches Act (S. 1236),”  Pacelle summarized,  “creating a landmark shift in how milk and milk alternatives are handled under the National School Lunch Program.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

“No practical options for lactose-intolerant children”

Explained Pacelle,   “The current law, under 42 U.S. Code § 1758,  has long required schools to offer cow’s milk,  excluding whole milk for over a decade due to its high saturated fat content.

“But it has offered no practical options for lactose-intolerant children — requiring a note from a doctor and labeling the condition as a disability,  but then typically not having plant-based milk stocked and available for those children.

“Under the [proposed] new legislation,”  Pacelle said,  “schools may offer non-dairy milk to students as part of their regular lunchroom options,  as well as whole milk again as part of the National School Lunch Program.

“More importantly,  schools will now be required to provide a non-dairy beverage — such as soy,  oat,  or almond milk — with a note from a parent,  guardian,  or licensed physician specifying whatever non-dairy beverage should be served to the student.”

Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.

The amended Freedom in School Cafeterias & Lunches Act still has political hurdles to jump.  Dairy states are expected to mount opposition in both the full Senate and the House of Representatives with energy unseen since a cow allegedly jumped over the moon.

But getting past the first phalanx of dinosaurs gives the bill favorable momentum.

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