|
Stop SB 1212 — DO NOT OPEN UP California's market to kangaroo body parts!
A dangerous bill has just been introduced, SB 1212 (Jones) which would roll back critical wildlife protections.
This bill would exempt kangaroos from California’s ban on the sale of wildlife parts and products, reopening our state to the commercial trade in kangaroo skins and meat.
We have seen this before, and we stopped it with your help!
In 2015, a nearly identical effort was pushed through the Legislature at the last minute using a “gut-and-amend” maneuver, backed by intense lobbying from foreign interests and industry groups. Here is a link to a LA Times Editorial on the bill at the time. Not without a political war, lawmakers ultimately rejected it.
As a result, California’s long-standing ban, first enacted in 1971, was fully restored in 2016.
Now, they are back again — with the same goal.
Kangaroos are shot in the wild, often at night, in a commercial hunt that is a heinous act of cruelty. Even the Australian government’s own code of practice acknowledges that not all kangaroos are killed instantly and requires that dependent young be killed when their mothers are shot.
SB 1212 attempts to justify this by deferring to foreign laws and international standards. But California has never outsourced its values. Our state has led the nation in rejecting the commercial exploitation of wildlife, from elephants to sea turtles to big cats.
As you may remember, SCIL sponsored AB 273 (Gonzalez) in 2019 - a landmark law that made California the first state to ban commercial fur trapping. We also sponsored AB 1260 (Maienschein) that same year, which added seven species of animals to the existing California law which banned the sale of many iconic species of animals, including kangaroos. SB 1212 is now trying to amend this same code section of law to delete protections for kangaroos.
This bill would reverse that leadership.
If passed, SB 1212 would:
- Reopen California’s market to products derived from the commercial killing of kangaroos
- Recreate the exact exemption that lawmakers already rejected in 2015
- Set a dangerous precedent for weakening wildlife protections species by species
- Undermine California’s authority to set its own ethical standards
This is not new policy, it is a recycled attempt to undo a law that has been in place for over fifty years and reaffirmed by the Legislature.
And just like before, it is being driven by economic interests, not California's values.
At a time when biodiversity is in crisis and Californians overwhelmingly support animal protection, the answer is not to reopen markets for wildlife products.
We must stop this new attempt, SB 1212!
👉 To help, first sign on to our letter to OPPOSE SB 1212
If you are signing as an individual, click this graphic:
| 
