Kangaroo meat is this month’s special at Utah restaurant as wildfires rage in Australia

A burger restaurant in Utah recently sparked backlash after making kangaroo meat its monthly special as the bushfires continue to ravage Australia.

Joe Fowler, the manager of Burger Bar, told CNN that the meat had been ordered months ago before the bushfires and that he thought about not making it the special, but then they’d be stuck with hundreds of pounds of meat. He also said that the restaurant was actually supporting Australia’s economy by buying from the country.

“We thought about not doing it, but then we would basically just have to waste all the meat that had already been shipped and already here it would just go to waste, which to me would be way more sad,” Fowler told FOX 13.

The burger special was controversial due to the timing. More than 1 billion animals have been killed as a result of Australia’s fires, according to a University of Sydney estimate.

“It’s probably not the best time to have it on the menu,” one customer told CNN. “You see on the news images of kangaroos fleeing the fires through all the smoke and the haze.”

Someone posted on behalf of Burger Bar’s owners on the restaurant’s Facebook fan group.

“We are aware that the Meat of the Month appears ill-timed,” he wrote. “We placed an order for the Kangaroo months ago before the Australian wildfires. In December, we talked about cancelling the order because we worried it would look insensitive. We could have done this, easily, with no one the wiser.”

“My brother and I decided that it would actually be insensitive, and also self-serving, to pull our business out of Australia because we were worried about how selling Kangaroo would look,” he continued. “(This is the only product we have ever gotten from out of the country, and does indeed come from Australia.) We think there is probably no better time to support Australia and the Australian economy than right now.”

Despite the backlash, some customers still decided to try out the kangaroo burger for themselves.

“It’s actually very tasty,” a customer told FOX13, adding that it made him feel “hoppy.”

This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Kangaroo meat is this month’s special at Utah restaurant as wildfires rage in Australia."