New Investigation Exposes Food Safety Failures and a Hidden Greyhound Racing Link in Australia’s Kangaroo Bushmeat Trade

Kangaroo-killing industry continues to promote unsafe, unsanitary bushmeat trade, even as kangaroo meat exports are down 86% and skin prices are down 98%.

Washington, D.C., Oct. 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new investigation from the Center for a Humane Economy has found that Australia’s commercial kangaroo meat industry has repeatedly exported meat that failed the country’s own food safety testing, both for human consumption and for pet food, to countries around the world.

Government records obtained under Australia’s Freedom of Information Act show that in 2025, samples from an EU-approved export facility tested as high as 340,000 colony-forming units per square centimeter, 10 times the European Union’s “unacceptable” threshold for bacterial contamination. No corrective action was taken. The meat was released to export markets anyway. Meat that failed retesting was not destroyed. Instead, it was downgraded and sold on the Australian domestic market, including for use in pet food.

“Australia’s government is subsidizing the kangaroo bushmeat trade, and our report exposes that it is showing complete disregard for food-safety standards, putting people and pets at risk,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action. “No nation should accept meat that fails the European Union’s own safety limits by a factor of 10.”

The investigation also documents, for the first time, a commercial link between the kangaroo meat industry and Australia’s greyhound racing industry. As international demand for kangaroo skins and meat has collapsed, cheap kangaroo meat has become a high-volume feed source for racing greyhounds, tying together two industries widely regarded as inhumane. The report identifies Ray Borda, who leads Australia’s largest kangaroo meat exporter and also has decades of history as a greyhound owner and breeder, as the connecting figure between the two trades.

“It’s no surprise that an unholy alliance has been formed between kangaroo shooters and desperate dog racers looking to feed greyhounds on the cheap,” said Christine Dorchak, president of GREY2K USA Worldwide. “This is another example of how the greyhound racing industry cuts corners and prioritizes profits over animal welfare. It’s also another reason why the cruel greyhound racing industry needs to end.”

Key Findings

• Kangaroo meat exports have fallen 86% in volume since their early-2000s peak, and skin prices have collapsed 98%, from $18.50 per skin in 2010 to less than $0.25 today, as major athletic companies, including Adidas, Nike, Puma, New Balance, and other global brands, have stopped sourcing kangaroo skins.
• An estimated 50% of kangaroo carcasses harbor Salmonella, and the industry relies on lead ammunition, which fragments and cannot be cleansed from the commercially sold carcasses. The spent lead ammunition — estimated at roughly 1.4 metric tonnes — is dispersed across Australia’s rangelands, inadvertently poisoning all manner of other wildlife.
• Up to 40% of kangaroos are not killed with a single shot to the head as required, leaving wounded animals to die slowly and in agony. Dependent joeys are killed by blunt force trauma or decapitation, or left to starve after their mothers are shot.
• Belgium alone accounts for over half of the European Union’s kangaroo meat imports and more than 82% of the pet food export market, making European demand the primary force keeping the industry alive.
• The industry’s own claims of economic significance, including a $150 million to $200 million valuation cited by industry representatives, are contradicted by Australian government data showing total meat export value of just $10.9 million (AUD) in 2025.

“We have always warned that the slaughter of our national icons was the next pandemic in waiting. Now it has been proven that this disgraceful industry is not just harming wildlife — it is putting humans and their beloved pets at risk too,” said Georgie Purcell, a member of the Victorian Parliament in Australia for the Animal Justice Party and a longtime campaigner for the protection of wildlife. “Countries continuing to participate in the import of kangaroo meat have no other choice. They must cancel their deals with the Australian government because of its failures. Anything else is putting their own citizens at risk.”

The report calls on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its regulatory counterparts in the European Union and Canada to declare kangaroo meat, whether for human consumption or as a pet food ingredient, unfit for sale. It calls on Belgium, as the industry’s largest single buyer, to end imports, and on Vietnam to reverse a recent trade arrangement permitting kangaroo meat imports. The report also urges major supermarket chains and pet food retailers to voluntarily discontinue kangaroo meat and kangaroo-based pet food products, and calls on Australia to mandate warning labels on kangaroo meat sold domestically disclosing documented contamination risks.

“The U.S. FDA should declare wild-shot kangaroo meat unfit for people or pets, and other nations should follow suit, from Belgium to Vietnam,” Pacelle said. “This is a form of bushmeat trade and violates every norm of food safety across the world.”

The full report, “Australia’s Global Bushmeat Trade: A Report on the Commercial Kangaroo Meat Industry, Economics, Food Safety, and Animal Welfare Failures,” is authored by Svetlana Feigin, Ph.D.; Jennifer Skiff; Tina Lawrence, B.Juris., LL.B.; Jim Keen, D.V.M., Ph.D.; Thomas Pool, D.V.M., M.P.H.; Kevin Chambers; and Peter Hylands. It is available here.

ABOUT
Animal Wellness Action is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) whose mission is to help animals by promoting laws and regulations at federal, state, and local levels that forbid cruelty to all animals. The group also works to enforce existing anti-cruelty and wildlife protection laws. Animal Wellness Action believes helping animals helps us all. X: @AWAction_News

The Center for a Humane Economy is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) whose mission is to help animals by helping forge a more humane economic order. The first organization of its kind in the animal protection movement, the Center encourages businesses to honor their social responsibilities in a culture where consumers, investors, and other key stakeholders abhor cruelty and the degradation of the environment and embrace innovation as a means of eliminating both. The Center believes helping animals helps us all. X: @TheHumaneCenter

Attachment

• Kangaroos are not Food

Lindsey von Busch
Animal Wellness Action 
7322849089
lindsey@animalwellnessaction.org