SACRAMENTO — After years of assertive lobbying by Adidas, the California Senate voted Tuesday to legalize the import and sale of kangaroo skins so that soccer players can buy shoes made from the marsupials' coveted leather.
While the kangaroo bill advanced, the Assembly refused to ban certain plastics used in children's products, but agreed to require bullets to carry identification numbers to help police trace them back to their guns.
The Senate kangaroo bill, which has pitted the Los Angeles Galaxy and CD Chivas USA soccer teams and sporting goods stores against animal rights activists, would ease California's 37-year import ban on kangaroo products.
The bill passed in the Senate -- after four years of failed efforts -- would allow a kangaroo product to be imported and sold in California if the species is not otherwise protected by laws here and abroad.
Of the 55 species of kangaroos in Australia, six are commercially harvested and exported, and would be allowed if the bill is approved by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those species include red and eastern and western gray kangaroos.
Animal activists are fighting the proposal, which they say will lead to the deaths of endangered kangaroos because hunting is done at night and the species are difficult to differentiate. They also object to the rules of kangaroo hunting, which dictate that if a mother is killed the baby must be killed as well.
Lauren Ornelas, an activist with Davis, Calif.-based Viva USA, said Adidas "is relentless in pushing to get this bill through."
Malcolm Turnbull, a representative of the Australian government, told the Senate that such a change in California law would not lead to the deaths of any endangered kangaroo species and that different species are "readily distinguishable."
Since 2003, the first year the bill was introduced, Adidas America has spent $435,693 lobbying the Legislature, state filings show.
The company is also fighting a legal challenge from Viva USA that alleges it is violating California's law by using kangaroo skins in its high-end cleats. The company denies the charge and has won initial court rulings; an appeal is pending before the California Supreme Court.
Adidas said in a statement that it was confident California's highest court would rule that the state's endangered species law is unenforceable because it conflicts with federal law.
