humane society

[cole martineau]

Can someone please post some links so I can read about what type of anti hunting they are involved in? Any info would be great, thanks!

[STEINFISHSKI]

Here is a start

http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/hunting/

[QuakrTrakr]

Here's some more info.
http://www.firearmsalliance.org/Doves.htm

[STEINFISHSKI]

And another from Maine's battles with them.

http://www.maineguides.org/referendum/anti_hunter_quotes.shtml

[swampthang]

On another note, does anyone know where to find a list of Humane Society suporters/contributors etc...?

I thought I once heard that PETCO gave money to HSUS

[Tim4Trout]

On another note, does anyone know where to find a list of Humane Society suporters/contributors etc...?

I thought I once heard that PETCO gave money to HSUS

Millions of unsuspecting and mis-informed people who believe that their donations are helping abandoned puppies and kittens at their local animal shelter.

Try these 3 sites ( they are all interconnected )

http://www.consumerfreedom.com

http://www.activistcash.com

http://www.animalscam.com

[slim]

One thing that people need to know is that the HSUS isn't your local humane society that cares for stray dogs and cats. They are a very well funded, radical, national animal rights organization. Their stated objective is to end all hunting, fishing, animal medical research, pet ownership, zoos, circuses, etc.

Even their name is misleading. They named themselves what they did to mislead people into donating money to them. When people see the Humane Society of the United States they think that it is some parent organization of your local humane society and then give money to them not knowing the real truth. I'll bet you 95% of the people who voted no on Prop 3 saw the HSUS opposition and thought that their local humane society was against it.

And now that they have won, they'll regroup, mislead some more people into giving them money and wait for their moment. This was just the first assault against our rights as sportsmen and women. Now that they see what can be done in Michigan by misleading people, they'll pick some other easy target like trapping or bowhunting (or bear hunting again). And if they can lie enough to get the voting public to end those pursuits, then they'll go after something bigger like deer hunting.

A large part of the problem is education. We need to show people what the real agenda of these animal rights terrorists really is (not just ending hunting and fishing) and let them base their opinions and decisions on facts, not on lies and misconceptions. Let's face it, hunting can be pretty ugly and brutal at times, but it you approach someone calmly with the real facts, then they are more likely to be swayed towards our way of thinking.

Any person on this forum who voted no on Prop 3 and thinks that their pursuit of choice (fishing, boating, atv riding, etc.) is safe from these people is mistaken.

Slim

[Tim4Trout]

Click the following link

See what they are currently fighting.

Check it regularly after January 1 as new legislation is introduced.

http://www.hsus.org/legislation_laws/state_legislation/

[Tim4Trout]

On page 3 of the "why we failed" thread ...


http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=159933&page=3

I posted a somewhat lengthy thing about html meta tags and how I felt our failure to use them properly hurt us.

If you want to know how the hsus gets its money, consider this.

Here are the current meta tags for the hsus' website

<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="humane society, hsus, animal testing, cat behavior, choosing a dog">
<META name="description" content="The Humane Socitey of the United States">

Now let's say that Jane Doe watches a news report on a bunch of abandoned puppies that were recently sent to an animal shelter near her, and decides that she wants to send some money to help with their care.

She goes on the internet, types in "humane society" and clicks the search button.

Guess what pops up first on that list.

Yup the hsus website Yahoo - Google - MSN

So she clicks the link and right there on the home page, there it is ...

Perhaps a few pictures of some cute kittens and puppies to grasp at her emotions.

( If the abandoned puppy news report makes big headlines, maybe even a story and pic on it )

And guess what else is on that hsus home page, right up there in the upper left corner where we commonly start to read...

Right under "About Us"

YUP ---- "Donate Now"

Just one more click and she can pull out that visa card and send in her contribution.

A few seconds of typing and a few mouse clicks and off goes her donation to help those poor distressed animals.

Or so she thinks.

All because of a simple meta tag containing the phrase "humane society" which search engines use to locate web pages, and which directs the person searching right into the hsus trap.

[fasthunter]

The more I read the more I find out that the dove thing was even more important than I originally though. (Trust me I always found it very importan.) That's some pretty messed up tactics. If the public knew they weren't even the real humane society and that all there money was going to some people that can't even give them a straight truth as to who they are.(For obvious selfish hidden agendas.)I think there would be some SERIOUSLY TICKED OFF PEOPLE!!!! Whether or not who they are. No one likes being mis-lead. I think if another problem was to come up that this information needs to hit the airwaves and HARD!!!!!!

[fasthunter]

I'm sending out a personal e-mail right now with a direct link to the activist cash website right now to everysingle person I know right now and asking them to forward it. I'm curious what some people say back. That really irritates me, and I'm sure it will even irritate people that don't hunt to know that the organization that led them to vote no on 3 is crooked.

[fasthunter]

Ok I just wrote this huge thing explaining everything so the people that don't know about this understand and sent it with the link....Duh, why didn't I think of this before. How many people get mass e-mails that forward to everyone possible everyday?? Free advertising to give these guys a blow back. I'm smiling with a big smirk right now. :D We might have lost this battle, but if we inform as many people as possible and talk about the fake humane society and how they've been misleading people that will hurt them.:evil: :evil: I've spent way too much time on here today though. I have to work.:yikes: :o

[mmw52880]

Fasthunter

If you will send it to me I will forward it to everyone I have as a contact also.
Thanks

mmw52880@yahoo.com

[SgtSlaughter]

One thing that people need to know is that the HSUS isn't your local humane society that cares for stray dogs and cats. They are a very well funded, radical, national animal rights organization. Their stated objective is to end all hunting, fishing, animal medical research, pet ownership, zoos, circuses, etc.

While they may be a different organization I did find my local humane society on the list of contributors against dove hunting.

[QuakrTrakr]

While they may be a different organization I did find my local humane society on the list of contributors against dove hunting.
They're just not as radical.
I don't know if everyone has seen this PETA clip.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1913999390200944075

[brdhntr]

One thing that people need to know is that the HSUS isn't your local humane society that cares for stray dogs and cats. They are a very well funded, radical, national animal rights organization. Their stated objective is to end all hunting, fishing, animal medical research, pet ownership, zoos, circuses, etc.-snip
Slim

Unfortunately, even the local shelters are being taken over by these folks. The Michigan Humane Society was a big backer of this proposal.

[STEINFISHSKI]

Dear Friend,
I have remarkable and historic news to convey! In what is a landmark day for animals, voters in Arizona and Michigan cast their ballots in favor of animals on Election Day.
Your HSUS has been a leader in passing ballot initiatives in past years to ban cockfighting, steel-jawed leghold traps and other body-gripping traps, bear baiting, hound hunting, and gestation crates. Now, we have achieved two remarkable wins for animals that will affect the lives of millions of animals, and we are so grateful to the people of Arizona and Michigan for leading the way and to our supporters who make our work possible.
https://img.getactivehub.com/an2/custom_images/humane/update_victory_97x90_dove.jpg (https://community.hsus.org/ct/ad111111wRjj/)Michigan voters stepped up for mourning doves, crushing Proposal 3 on the ballot and restoring the 100-year tradition of protecting the state's official bird of peace from target shooting. The vote was 68 percent to 32 percent. The Humane Society of the United States spearheaded the effort to protect mourning doves, from garnering more than 1,000 endorsements to relentlessly canvassing the state in support of the issue. Michigan voters listened, and the gentle backyard songbird will remain safe from target shooters.
https://img.getactivehub.com/an2/custom_images/humane/update_victory_97x90_pig.jpg (https://community.hsus.org/ct/ad111111wRjj/)In Arizona, humane treatment of farm animals won the day when voters cast their ballot in favor of Proposition 204, which bans gestation crates for breeding pigs and veal crates for young calves. Agribusiness and other special interests spent $2.5 million to defeat Proposition 204. It is the second state in the nation to ban gestation crates and the first state to ban veal crates. The vote was 61 percent in favor and only 39 percent opposed.

https://img.getactivehub.com/an2/custom_images/humane/campaign_update_katrina_line2.gif
If you're interested in learning more about this momentous night for animals at the ballot box, click here (https://community.hsus.org/ct/ad111111wRjj/). Thank you again for your remarkable support and take time to savor these important victories.
Sincerely,
https://img.getactivehub.com/an2/custom_images/humane/campaign_update_katrina_wsig.gif
Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO
The Humane Society of the United States

[STEINFISHSKI]

"Who is the Humane Society of the United States?"
HSUS raises $65 million each year, and has total assets of over $100 million. This huge pot of money goes toward a continual barrage of political campaigns and lobbying to stop hunting and trapping – with almost zero being contributed toward caring for lost or abandoned pets (less than 1.8% given to local programs – and even then mostly for anti-hunting and anti-trapping political campaigns like Maine’s Bear referendum.


In addition, HSUS partners with many other radical animal rights groups to share the financing for their anti-hunting campaigns. Their partners include the Fund for Animals, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).


As a charity, HSUS has often been criticized by watchdog groups for its wastefully high fundraising expenses, and for misrepresenting who and what they are. HSUS has also been criticized for the huge salaries of its very well paid campaign managers and organizers – the top managers receive over $200,000 in annual salary!


Even Merritt Clifton, publisher of "Animal People", a newsletter written by animal rightists for animal rightists, singled out HSUS for appearing to be something it is not. In December’s 11th annual report on fundraising, under the heading "How they fool the world", he writes:
"The most misleading appeals that Animal People sees on a regular basis are those which misrepresent the sender. Over time, such appeals can create an image for an organization which is sharply at odds with what it actually does."


"The Humane Society of the U.S., for instance, is not and never has been a collective voice for all, most, or any other humane societies. Neither does it shelter animals, adopt out animals, neuter animals, or share funding with local humane societies. In fact, HSUS is an advocacy organization representing just itself."
Many of HSUS’ leaders have been radical anti-hunting activists all their life. A large portion of the current HSUS leaders came from extreme groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Fund for Animals, Animal Liberation Front, and other organizations.

[hondodeerhunter]

Kent County humane society gave to the prop 3 fund also. I wouldnt support any county humane society because of ties to the HSUS. Support your local county dog poound instead. Adopt a dog that way.

[STEINFISHSKI]

http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm

Humane Society of the United States
2100 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037
Phone 202-452-1100 | Fax 202-258-3051 | Email wpacelle@hsus.org


http://www.activistcash.com/images/title_overview.gif
http://www.activistcash.com/images/logos/hsus_logo.gif Despite the words “humane society” on its letterhead, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with your local animal shelter. Despite the omnipresent dogs and cats in its fundraising materials, it’s not an organization that runs spay/neuter programs or takes in stray, neglected, and abused pets. And despite the common image of animal protection agencies as cash-strapped organizations dedicated to animal welfare, HSUS has become the wealthiest animal rights organization on earth. HSUS is big, rich, and powerful, a “humane society” in name only. And while most local animal shelters are under-funded and unsung, HSUS has accumulated $113 million in assets and built a recognizable brand by capitalizing on the confusion its very name provokes. This misdirection results in an irony of which most animal lovers are unaware: HSUS raises enough money to finance animal shelters in every single state, with money to spare, yet it doesn’t operate a single one anywhere.
Instead, HSUS spends millions on programs that seek to economically cripple meat and dairy producers; eliminate the use of animals in biomedical research labs; phase out pet breeding, zoos, and circus animal acts; and demonize hunters as crazed lunatics. HSUS spends $2 million each year on travel expenses alone, just keeping its multi-national agenda going.
HSUS president Wayne Pacelle described some of his goals in 2004 for The Washington Post: “We will see the end of wild animals in circus acts … [and we’re] phasing out animals used in research. Hunting? I think you will see a steady decline in numbers.” More recently, in a June 2005 interview, Pacelle told Satya magazine that HSUS is working on “a guide to vegetarian eating, to really make the case for it.” A strict vegan himself, Pacelle added: “Reducing meat consumption can be a tremendous benefit to animals.”
Shortly after Pacelle joined HSUS in 1994, he told Animal People (an inside-the-movement watchdog newspaper) that his goal was to build “a National Rifle Association of the animal rights movement.” And now, as the organization’s leader, he’s in a position to back up his rhetoric with action. In 2005 Pacelle announced the formation of a new “Animal Protection Litigation Section” within HSUS, dedicated to “the process of researching, preparing, and prosecuting animal protection lawsuits in state and federal court.”
HSUS’s current goals have little to do with animal shelters. The group has taken aim at the traditional morning meal of bacon and eggs with a tasteless “Breakfast of Cruelty” campaign. Its newspaper op-eds demand that consumers “help make this a more humane world reducing our consumption of meat and egg products.” Since its inception, HSUS has tried to limit the choices of American consumers, opposing dog breeding, conventional livestock and poultry farming, rodeos, circuses, horse racing, marine aquariums, and fur trapping.
[B]A True Multinational Corporation
HSUS is a multinational conglomerate with ten regional offices in the United States and a special Hollywood Office that promotes and monitors the media’s coverage of animal-rights issues. It includes a huge web of organizations, affiliates, and subsidiaries. Some are nonprofit, tax-exempt “charities,” while others are for-profit taxable corporations, which don’t have to divulge anything about their financial dealings.
This unusually complex structure means that HSUS can hide expenses where the public would never think to look. For instance, one HSUS-affiliated organization called the HSUS Wildlife Land Trust collected $21.1 million between 1998 and 2003. During the same period, it spent $15.7 million on fundraising expenses, most of which directly benefited HSUS. This arrangement allowed HSUS to bury millions in direct-mail and other fundraising costs in its affiliate’s budget, giving the public (and charity watchdog groups) the false impression that its own fundraising costs were relatively low.
Until 1995 HSUS also controlled the Humane Society of Canada (HSC), which Irwin had founded four years earlier. But Irwin, who claimed to live in Canada when he set up HSC, turned out to be ineligible to run a Canadian charity (He actually lived in Maryland). Irwin’s Canadian passport was ultimately revoked and he was replaced as HSC’s executive director.
The new leader later hauled HSUS into court to answer charges that Irwin had transferred over $1 million to HSUS from the Canadian group. HSUS claimed it was to pay for HSC’s fundraising, but didn’t provide the group with the required documentation to back up the expenses. In January 1997 a Canadian judge ordered HSUS to return the money, writing: “I cannot imagine a more glaring conflict of interest or a more egregious breach of fiduciary duty. It demonstrates an overweening arrogance of a type seldom seen.”
From Animal Welfare to Animal Rights
There is an enormous difference between animal “welfare” organizations, which work for the humane treatment of animals, and animal “rights” organizations, which aim to completely end the use and ownership of animals. The former have been around for centuries; the latter emerged in the 1980s, with the rise of the radical People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
The Humane Society of the United States began as an animal welfare organization. Originally called the National Humane Society, it was established in 1954 as a spin-off of the American Humane Association (AHA). Its founders wanted a slightly more radical group -- the AHA did not oppose sport hunting or the use of shelter animals for biomedical research.
In 1980, HSUS officially began to change its focus from animal welfare to animal rights. After a vote was taken at the group’s San Francisco national conference, it was formally resolved that HSUS would “pursue on all fronts … the clear articulation and establishment of the rights of all animals … within the full range of American life and culture.”
In Animal Rights and Human Obligations, the published proceedings of this conference, HSUS stated unequivocally that “there is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and other animals.” It’s no surprise, then, that a 2003 HSUS fundraising mailer boasted that the group has been working toward “putting an end to killing animals for nearly half a century.”
In 1986 John McArdle, then HSUS’s Director of Laboratory Animal Welfare, told Washingtonian magazine that HSUS was “definitely shifting in the direction of animal rights faster than anyone would realize from our literature.”
The group completed its animal-rights transformation during the 1990s, changing its personnel in the process. HSUS assimilated dozens of staffers from PETA and other animal-rights groups, even employing John “J.P.” Goodwin, a former Animal Liberation Front member and spokesman with a lengthy arrest record and a history of promoting arson to accomplish animal liberation.
The change brought more money and media attention. Hoyt explained the shift in 1991, telling National Journal, “PETA successfully stole the spotlight … Groups like ours that have plugged along with a larger staff, a larger constituency … have been ignored.” Hoyt agreed that PETA’s net effect within the animal-rights movement was to spur more moderate groups to take tougher stances in order to attract donations from the public. “Maybe.” Hoyt mused, “the time has come to say, ‘Since we haven’t been successful in getting half a loaf, let’s go for the whole thing.’”
HSUS leaders have even expressed their desire to put an end to the lifesaving biomedical research that requires the use of animals. As early as 1988 the group’s mailings demanded that the U.S. government “eliminate altogether the use of animals as research subjects.” In 1986 Washingtonian asked then-HSUS Vice-President for Laboratory Animals John McArdle about his opinion that brain-dead humans should be substituted for animals in medical research. “It may take people a while to get used to the idea,” McArdle said, “but once they do the savings in animal lives will be substantial.”
McArdle realized then what HSUS understands today -- that an uncompromising, vegetarian-only, anti-medical-progress philosophy has limited appeal. At the 1984 HSUS convention, he gave his group’s members specific instructions on how to frame the issue most effectively. “Avoid the words ‘animal rights’ and ‘antivivisection’,” McArdle said. “They are too strange for the public. Never appear to be opposed to animal research. Claim that your only concern is the source of animals.”
In a 1993 letter published by the American Society for Microbiology, Dr. Patrick Cleveland of the University of California San Diego spelled out HSUS’s place in the animal-rights pantheon. "What separates the HSUS from other animal rights groups,” Cleveland wrote, “is not their philosophy of animal rights and goal of abolishing the use of animals in research, but the tactics and timetable for that abolition.” Cleveland likened it to the difference between a mugger and a con man. “They each will rob you — they use different tactics, have different timetables, but the result is the same. The con man may even criticize the mugger for using confrontational tactics and giving all thieves a bad name, but your money is still taken.”
Targeting Meat and Dairy
In 2004 HSUS promoted long-time vice president Wayne Pacelle to the position of President. Along with Pacelle’s passionate style and his experience navigating the halls of Congress, HSUS got its first strictly vegan leader.
One of Pacelle’s first acts as HSUS’s new chief executive was to send a memo to all HSUS staffers articulating his vision for the future. HSUS’s new “campaigns section,” Pacelle wrote, “will focus on farm animals.” For Americans accustomed to eating meat, eggs, and dairy foods, the thought of an animal rights group with a budget three times the size of PETA’s targeting their food choices should be unsettling. And Pacelle has hired other high-profile, unapologetic meat and dairy “abolitionists” since taking over.
In 2005, former Compassion Over Killing (COK) president Miyun Park joined HSUS as a staffer in its new “farm animals and sustainable agriculture department.” Around the same time, HSUS hired COK's other co-founder, Paul Shapiro, as manager of its derogatorily named “Factory Farming Campaign.” COK’s former general counsel Carter Dillard shortly afterward, as did vegan doctor and mad-cow-disease scaremonger Michael Greger. Like Pacelle, these new HSUS hires are all self-described vegans. Their arrival in the world’s richest animal-rights group signals that HSUS is giving anti-meat campaigns a prominent place.
In October, just a few months before he became an HSUS staffer, Shapiro told the 2004 National Student Animal Rights Conference that “nothing is more important than promoting veganism.” And Shapiro noted during an August 2004 animal-rights seminar (hosted by United Poultry Concerns) that after just 10 weeks at the helm, Pacelle had “already implemented a ‘no animal products in the office’ policy ... You know, they're going to have actual farmed-animal campaigns now, where they're going to be trying to legislate against gestation crates and all this stuff.”
Americans who enjoy meat, cheese, eggs, and milk may soon come to regard HSUS as a new PETA, with an even broader reach. Shortly after taking office, Pacelle announced a merger with the $20 million Fund For Animals. The combined group estimated its 2005 budget at “over $95 million” and also announced the formation of a new “political organization,” which will “allow for a more substantial investment of resources in political and lobbying activities.”
Domestic Deception
It takes tens of millions of dollars to run campaigns against so many domestic targets, and HSUS consistently misleads Americans with its fundraising efforts by hinting that it’s a “humane society” in the more conventional sense of the term. Buried deep within HSUS’s website is a disclaimer noting that the group “is not affiliated with, nor is it a parent organization for, local humane societies, animal shelters, or animal care and control agencies. These are independent organizations … HSUS does not operate or have direct control over any animal shelter.”
For instance, a 2001 member recruitment mailing called those on the HSUS mailing list “true pet lovers,” referring to unspecified work on behalf of “dogs, puppies, cats, [and] kittens.” Another recruitment mailing from that year included “Thank You,” “Happy Birthday,” and “Get Well Soon” greeting cards featuring pets such as dogs, cats, and fish. The business reply envelope lists “7 Steps to a Happier Pet.”
A 2003 recruitment mailing also included those “Steps,” as well as free address labels with pastel pictures of dogs and cats. The fundraising letter subtly substituted the animal-rights term “companion animals” for “pets.”
“Our mission is to encourage adoption in your neighborhood and throughout the country,” reads another HSUS fundraising appeal. “Even though local shelters are trying their best to save lives, they are simply overwhelmed.” That last sentence, at least, is true. But don’t count on the multi-million-dollar conglomerate HSUS to do anything about it. HSUS doesn’t operate a single animal shelter and has no hands-on contact with stray or surplus animals.
In 1995 the Washington (DC) Humane Society almost closed its animal shelter due to a budget shortfall. HSUS, which is also based in Washington, DC, ultimately withdrew an offer to build and operate a DC shelter, at its own expense, to serve as a national model.
In exchange for running the shelter, HSUS wanted three to five acres of city land and tax-exempt status for all its real estate holdings in the District of Columbia. The DC government offered a long-term lease, but that wasn’t good enough. HSUS refused to proceed unless it would “own absolutely” the land. The district declined, and what might have become the only HSUS-funded animal shelter never materialized.
So what does HSUS do with the millions it raises using the furry faces of Fido and Fluffy? In 2002, the multi-million-dollar conglomerate gave less than $150,000 to hands-on humane societies and animal shelters.
Worse, HSUS employees have complained to the press that their organization wastes its resources on fundraising expenses and high salaries for its chief executives. Robert Baker, an HSUS consultant and former chief investigator, told U.S. News & World Report: “The Humane Society should be worried about protecting animals from cruelty. It’s not doing that. The place is all about power and money.”
Influencing Communities
HSUS doesn’t save flesh-and-blood animals the way local “humane societies” do, but it does lobby heavily to change the laws of communities across the country. “HSUS was the financial clout that rammed Initiative 713, the anti-trapping measure, down our throats,” reports Rich Landers of the Spokane (WA) Spokesman-Review. “I pleaded [with Wayne Pacelle, then HSUS’s government affairs VP] at least four times for examples of HSUS commitment in Washington [state] other than introducing costly anti-hunting and anti-wildlife management initiatives. He had no immediate answer but promised to send me the list of good things HSUS does in this state. That was six months ago, and I presume Pacelle is still searching.”
Like other national animal-rights groups, HSUS has learned that pouring huge sums of money into ballot initiative campaigns can give it results normal public relations and lobbying work never could. Along with other heavy hitters like the Fund for Animals and Farm Sanctuary, HSUS scored a big victory in Florida in 2002 when a ballot initiative passed that gave constitutional rights to pregnant pigs. HSUS donated at least $50,000 to the Florida PAC that managed the campaign.
Florida farmers were banned from using “gestation crates,” usually necessary to keep sows healthy during pregnancy and to prevent them from accidentally rolling over and crushing their newborn piglets. After this amendment passed, raising pigs became economically unsustainable, and farmers were forced to slaughter their animals rather than comply with the costly new constitutional requirements. Today, Florida is considering a taxpayer-funded bailout of its few pork farmers.
Animal-rights leaders plan to extend their “pregnant pigs” win to other states, and have organized similar campaigns in California and New Jersey. HSUS’s four-year Iowa campaign, misleadingly called “Care4Iowa,” has a stated goal of promoting the so-called “humane” methods of livestock production which universally result in greater costs for farmers and higher prices for consumers.
And HSUS won’t stop at initiatives aimed at livestock farmers and trappers. At the 1996 HSUS annual meeting, Wayne Pacelle announced that the ballot initiative would be used for all manner of legislation in the future, including “companion animal issues and laboratory animal issues.” Pacelle has personally been involved in at least 22 such campaigns, 17 of which HSUS scored as victories. These operations, he said, “pay dividends and serve as a training ground for activists.”
HSUS is also a part of the Keep Antibiotics Working (KAW) coalition, a slick Washington-based PR campaign to end the “inappropriate” use of antibiotics in livestock animals. This coalition, comprised largely of science-deprived environmental groups, claims to worry deeply about antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in people. KAW doesn’t, however, devote any attention to the rampant over-prescription of the drugs to humans.
Why doesn’t HSUS want animals to receive disease-preventing antibiotics? Raising livestock without antibiotics is much more difficult and costly, and the resulting meat, eggs, and dairy are considerably more expensive. It’s possible that the KAW coalition’s goals would give Americans an economic incentive to lean toward vegetarianism; HSUS would, of course, not object.

[STEINFISHSKI]

Protesting the Protesters: HSUS may feel wrath of disillusioned animal activists at Genesis Awards.


“Where’s the money?”

That’s the question Katrina rescuers may be asking tonight during a planned protest at the Genesis Awards, the annual HSUS fete honoring media personalities who have featured animal welfare issues in their work. The protesters want to know what happened to millions of dollars the multinational HSUS raised last summer, supposedly to save animals displaced by the devastating hurricanes in America’s southeast.
HSUS, the consummate promoter of protests, boycotts, petition drives, publicity-grabbing initiatives, and whacked-out laws to end hunting and grant constitutional rights to pigs, now faces attack and insurrection from within its own ranks.
An editorial on the website of the rescue organization, The Kitty Liberation Front, fumes: “HSUS was consistent in asking for donations, even when they left town leaving the rescuing to the other smaller organizations. Don't get tricked by HSUS’ initial presence, because they made sure to monopolize the Katrina area, not allowing anyone to come to rescue, unless these "VOLUNTEERS" were under the HSUS umbrella. These rescuers with HSUS were NOT staff workers, the HSUS staff workers were busier than usual, with brand new state of the art computers, because HSUS' priority was to be able to handle the millions in donations, ..... In fact, taking donations in the mega-millions was HSUS’ biggest and only success in Katrina!”1
The Kitty Liberation Front editorialist comments further: “ People are justified in their anger and I don't think these same people are willing to see AGAIN, HSUS get false credit doing a great job with Katrina, while it was really the volunteers, military and other small organizations that were ignored for being the real rescuers.”2
Disheartened rescuers allege major problems with the HSUS response to Katrina:

HSUS shirts and media representatives were “everywhere” at the Lamar-Dixon rescue site, yet organization for animal care was minimal.
Microchip scans were not part of the intake protocol, limiting the ability to safeguard animals or return them to their owners in a timely fashion.
US Public Health Service and Veterinary Medical Assistance teams streamlined the intake process and vetted animals while HSUS volunteers stood chatting in groups and hampered efforts of some rescue groups to pull dogs from the facility.
Throughout the ordeal, HSUS continued to seek money for disaster victims (and does so to this day) by touting its work at the Lamar-Dixon site and its general disaster preparedness plans. Potential donors should note that donation links on the disaster pages of the HSUS website go to a general donation page, not to a specific fund for disaster aid. Although HSUS has not suffered widespread condemnation within the animal rights movement before, it has long been criticized by outsiders. Charity watchdog groups downgrade HSUS for spending a majority of its budget on fundraising activities and particularly for spending $3.1 million with telemarketers to raise $2.7 million, a practice that appears aimed at getting donor lists rather than helping animals.
Other critics blame HSUS for sensationalizing issues in order to use them for fundraising purposes. Long time pit bull owners hold HSUS responsible for helping to make their dogs the breed of choice for criminals and others who seek out aggressive dogs. They argue that the sensational campaigns against dog fighting led by HSUS in the mid-1980s actually increased dog fighting, expanding it from the backwoods to inner cities and making pit bulls popular with thugs and animal abusers in the process. Twenty years later, dog fighting is flourishing and HSUS has just announced a new campaign against dog fighting, this one led by HSUS employee J.P. Goodwin, a former spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Front.
The Genesis Awards were started by The Ark Trust, an organization that was absorbed by HSUS when the event started generating national attention. The Genesis Awards will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday night, March 18. Among the 20 awards, there will be kudos for Larry King Live for programs focusing on cruelty in the Chinese fur industry and the Canadian seal hunt, and for An Unfinished Life, a hackneyed melodrama in which a grizzly bear first maims a man, then returns to haunt his life and the lives of his friends. An edited version of the show will air on Animal Planet on May 6.
Whether or not the protest actually takes place at the Genesis Awards, the amount of resentment building against HSUS because of its handling of Katrina represents a gathering storm within the radical animal rights movement.
Notes
1. HSUS Protest: Let us review: The Kitty Liberation Front, http://www.thekittyliberationfront.org/editorial%20-%20hsus_genesis_awards_2.htm
2. Should there be a protest at the Genesis Awards? The Kitty Liberation Front, http://www.thekittyliberationfront.org/editorial%20-%20hsus_genesis_awards_1.htm

[STEINFISHSKI]

http://www.iwmc.org/newsletter/2005/2005-02-01.htm

Pet Deception
Editorial by Eugene Lapointe
http://www.iwmc.org/newsletter/2005/2005-02-01.jpgThe Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is brazenly deceiving the American public in its latest fundraising campaign. Many Americans already donate money to HSUS in the mistaken belief that, by doing so, they are supporting the local humane societies that provide shelters and care for unwanted pets.
In its new campaign, potential new HSUS members - taken from the mailing lists of other animal welfare and animal rights groups - receive a letter from Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO, stuffed in a mug. Both are adorned with a heart-warming illustration that Pacelle describes in the letter as "an adorable picture of a dog and cats".
In his letter, Pacelle never mentions the animal rights campaigns his organization promotes, instead giving the reader the clear impression that a donation to HSUS is going to help abandoned or abused pets. The word "pets" appears four times in the letter and the donating envelope contains a list of seven ways to make a pet happier. "Dogs" gets three mentions on the first page and "cats" gets two. There are even two references to the local humane societies that have nothing to do with HSUS!
The local humane societies are unlikely to take any legal action against HSUS for this clear misrepresentation, not least because they have no centrally organized structure that can put together a lawsuit. But it is clear that HSUS is cashing in unfairly on the work and reputation of the local humane societies that provide such an important service to abandoned pets in America. These local groups will lose out financially as money is unwittingly diverted to the animal rights group that shares a similar name. Through its deception, HSUS will starve the local humane societies of the funds they need and, ultimately, aid cruelty to American pets. http://www.iwmc.org/images/iwmc-end.gif
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