Posts Tagged HSUS
The “Creatures’ Caucus” – A Call to Action
Back in December the HSUS bragged that a record number of animal “protection” laws had been passed in 2008. Their website states that; “The nation’s largest animal protection organization ushered in a whole new era of policies for animals by helping to pass 91 new animal protection laws this year, surpassing the previous record number of 86 new laws enacted in 2007.”
While we’re absolutely in favor of well-written legislation that improves the lives of animals — it is our opinion that the goal of the “protective” legislation pushed by HSUS lobbyist is to end all use of animals. HSUS lobbies for breed-specific legislation, limit laws, mandatory spay-neuter and overly restrictive breeding regulations designed to put hobby, show and working dog breeders out of business. While 2008 saw record numbers of these kinds of laws introduced at every level across the country, 2009 may be even worse. According to a press release just posted by United States Sportsmen’s Alliance:
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) couldn’t be happier with the formation of a new group of Congressmen that will promote its agenda.
On February 18, U.S. Representatives Jim Moran (D- VA) and Elton Gallegy (R- CA) announced the formation of a new Congressional Animal Protection Caucus. The goal of the group is to get like-minded members of Congress together and promote animal rights policy in Washington, D.C. through forums and briefings.
According to the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF), the legislative wing of the HSUS, the new caucus will “take lawmaking for the animals to the next level.” HSLF went on to gush in its blog, “we could not be more excited about their leadership of this new organization of humane lawmakers.”
This group of legislators, also known as the “Creatures’ Caucus” appears to be operating under the false assumption that HSUS speaks for American pet owners. A press release published yesterday on Moran’s website prominently features this quote:
“The American public is united in its belief that all animals deserve humane treatment,” said Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. “The newly constituted Congressional Animal Protection Caucus will help better align our federal policies with public opinion, and we are excited to work closely with its leaders and with the entire Congress to combat cruelty and abuse.”
NEWSFLASH Representative Moran – the beliefs of the American public are in no way “united” with those of the HSUS. Most of us enjoy eating meat, drinking milk, wearing leather and wool and owning pets. Lots of us enjoy hunting and fishing. Many of us love “dangerous” breeds of dogs. And unlike the self-rightous a$$#*les at HSUS, we don’t feel entitled to force our social / religious / moral standards on other people.
Folks, this is something we all need to keep an eye on. Write to your senators and representatives and let them know that “Humane Wayne” and his vicious pack of mindless, mean-spirited monsters don’t speak for you. According to USSA:
As of press time, a full list of other U.S. Representatives joining the caucus was not available. However, the USSA will let sportsmen know as the names become available. Each member of the caucus should be contacted by constituents in their districts.
Don’t wait for that list to come out. Call or write NOW. We all need to make sure that we are the voice our elected representatives hear.
4 comments February 19, 2009
A Tireless Minority
Hat tip to Sharon who alerted me to the July-August Edition of the Spaniel Journal, that features an article by Loretta Baughn titled “Setting Brush Fires.” The lead-in is this excellent quote from Samuel Adams:
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”
This country was founded by an irate, tireless minority who fought to earn freedom of religion, freedom of speech and to be free from the tyranny of taxation without representation – among other things.
Regrettably, the tireless minority that fights today is one that seeks to restrict – and even take away – many of our freedoms. As Ms. Baughan pointed out:
The phenomenon is not exclusive to Wisconsin. “Brush fires” are being set across the country in states, cities and towns – from sea to shining sea. The animal rights activists will point to a dog authorities might have confiscated in a raid of a sub-standard breeder with its fur all matted and dirty then scream the state has a “puppy mill” problem. I hate to see any animal needlessly suffer, but just by virtue that the authorities DID raid and confiscate dogs from a sub-standard breeder raising them in filth is PROOF that current laws work.
There are laws on the books regulating animal cruelty, livestock handling,animals in research, commercial breeding, pet waste, noise, zoning, limit laws – and more. Many of these laws could be improved, but when arrests occur, the media quick to jump on the animal rights bandwagon publicizing the plight of abused animals – but slow to the point of refusing - to report the fact that arrests can demonstrate that laws are working?
When a person is severly bitten by a dog, the incident spreads through the media like, well – like a brush fire. But the press never tells us when the dog involved in the incident was (as in most cases) an unlicensed, untrained dog with a previous history of aggression that was allowed, illegally - to run at large. The reports of most of the dog bite incidents published in local news over the last year noted that the dog had a previous history of aggression but they almost never went on to point out that the dog’s owner was therefore already breaking an existing law by putting the dog into the situation where the bite occured.
According to Minnesota State Law (Statutes 347.50-54) “Dangerous dog” means any dog that has:
(1) without provocation, inflicted substantial bodily harm on a human being on public or private property;
(2) killed a domestic animal without provocation while off the owner’s property; or
(3) been found to be potentially dangerous, and after the owner has notice that the dog is potentially dangerous, the dog aggressively bites, attacks, or endangers the safety of humans or domestic animals.
Among other requirements, the owner must register a dangerous dog with the state. He must obtain a $50,000 surety bond or liability insurance payable to any person injured by the dog. He must keep the dog in a secure enclosure with warning signs. When the dog is outside the enclosure it must be leashed, muzzled and under the physical restraint of a responsible person. Enforcing these restrictions would have prevented nearly every severe dog bite incident that occurred in this state in the last few years.
Yet the media (spurred on by a tireless, vocal minority of animal rights activists) continues to call for more laws instead of lobbying for better enforcement of existing laws; and members of the public, who have been conditioned to believe the media without question; agree to give up a little bit of their freedom to save babies from dogs bites and puppies from greedy millers.
Folks, we’re standing at the edge of a steep and terrifyingly slippery slope.
Vicious dog attacks. The plight of mill dogs. Dogs being euthanized or warehoused, in shelters. Dog poop in parks. Animal hoarders. Cruel people who torture dogs and other animals. Stories about these law breakers are being fed to the media directly from the spoon of the animal rights movement. The law breakers are portrayed as representing the norm, instead of the exception – and the story sells. Meanwhile, the thousands millions of stories that could be written about sweet-natured pitbulls, conscientious dog breeders, skilled dog trainers, caring rescue groups and responsible pet owners only rarely make the news.
The AR minority is trying to use lurid charges of animal abuse directed at the minority of farmers, hunters, fishermen, breeders and pet owners who break laws and commit cruel acts to end all use of animals in society. False and unsubstantiated allegations of animal abuse to raise funds are routinely used by these groups to attract media attention and amass support from naive, uninformed citizens who are led to believe that their donations will be used directly to save abandoned and abused animals.
Their true goal is not to help animals. HSUS doesn’t operate shelters and PETA kills nearly every animal they take in. The animal rights movement hurts us - and it hurts our pets. And it will keep doing so as long as citizens mindlessly swallow the AR media hype they’re fed and continue to contribute financial and tacit support to this cruel, tireless minority.
5 comments July 22, 2008
Free Body Bag With Puppy Purchase!
Apparently the folks over at DogFancy Magazine don’t bother to screen the content of ads submitted to their publication. This month’s issue includes an ad placed by PeTA that offers a “Free Gift Bag” for new puppy owners. Any new puppy owner foolish enough to call the number listed for the free offer will hear a message informing them that the “gift” is a body bag for the dog that they ‘killed’ by purchasing a purebred puppy.
Just when I begin to think that I’ve seen it all, the proslytizing idiots fools over at PeTA manage to find a way to drop to new lows. I wonder how many of the people who call are children, excited by a new pup?
For the record, I’m not a fan of Dog Fancy. As noted above, they don’t appeaer to make any effort to screen their ad content and some of the ads they carry promote operations that I believe are unethical. You know what I’m talking about, the kind of “send us credit card payment and we’ll ship a puppy to you, no questions asked” sort of operation that works so hard to masquerade as a reputable breeder.
Is this just a case of poor screening of ad content, or are the folks over at DogFancy simply out to make a buck at any cost? Based on the number of ads placed each month there by money-grubbing puppy mills questionable breeders and the fact that they accepted a full page ad from the H$U$ just last month — it sure looks like a case of pure, unadulterated greed.
A newsletter for the Southern California Alaskan Malamute Club carried a response from a staff member at Dog Fancy just after they posted the full page ad from HSUS. She stated:
Our department did not sell this ad it was our display department. We work with the breeders not businesses. I’m so sorry I can see why you and others are upset. I am going to do what I can so this does not happen again.
Apparently the clueless dolts nice people over at Dog Fancy had no idea that PeTA and HSUS are in the business of eliminating pet ownership. Perhaps if they spent just a bit of time researching important issues like breed specific legislation, mandatory spay/neuter laws, pet limits and other pet-related legislation – they’d understand just how much it hurts them when they provide a public relations platform to AR groups.
If you’d like to contact Dog Fancy Magazine to express your opinion, here’s the information:
You can post comments to Dog Fancy online here:
http://www.dogchannel.com/contact-us.aspx
Or contact Constance Dang in the editorial department directly:
(800) 530-3010
cdang@bowtieinc.com
UPDATED July 18:
Here’s MORE contact information.
(866) 834-6061 is the phone number you are supposed to call to leave the address for PeTA to send your body bag, but you could choose to leave a message there instead – perhaps letting them know how you feel about their campaign. Why don’t we heat up that line a bit?
6 comments July 16, 2008
Out of the Frying Pan…
People living in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas are upset – they say their community has gone to the dogs – and the mayor is to blame!
“They are better off free,” Mayor James Valley said Thursday. “Pardon the pun, but it was just something that was dogging us. So it would be easier for us until we get a facility and have a plan that we just not be in the animal shelter business.”
Excuse me, the major actually admitted that he believes that abandoning dogs by the side of the road in a rural area is a viable solution to shelter overcrowding? Is this solution about what’s good for the dogs or is it really about a simple and inexpensive solution for the city?
Fortunately, not everyone in Arkansas agrees with the mayor:
But the St. Francis National Forest isn’t in the animal shelter business, either. “In the code, it is illegal to release animals, livestock or abandoned personal property on national forest land,” spokeswoman Tracy Farley said.
Uh, yeah. And probably illegal too. Don’t they have animal cruelty laws in Helena-West Helena?
Valley said the city’s animal shelter was so run down that a regional humane society worker cut its locks last winter and released all the dogs. The city then temporarily moved its shelter to four uncovered pens at the city sanitation department.
After people complained the animals were still not properly cared for, the mayor decided the animals would be better off in the forest. The city street director on Wednesday took about 10 dogs to the forest after feeding and watering them. About three dogs were kept to be put down by a veterinarian, Valley said.
So, mayor apparently feels that a history of negligence on the part of the city absolves them of the need to properly maintain animals in their care. And – there’s more:
“We have a leash law that we’ve been trying to work our way into enforcing. It’s been so lax,” the mayor said. “People are not buying leashes or tags for the animals. We could literally pick up every other dog in the city.”
{shaking my head in complete and utter consternation…}
Wait – the city couldn’t maintain the shelter they had, they are so ill-prepared to care for the dogs now in custody that they’re illegally setting them ‘free’ in the woods — and now they want to increase the number of dogs they’re abusing confiscating?
Eyewitnessnews reports interviewed local resident Shirley Blair. Blair lives near the forest where the dogs were released. She thinks the plan is crazy too.
“I think it’s ridiculous. We’re not pleased with the decision to turn them loose out here.” Shirley Blair says just one day after the dogs were released, six of them showed up in her yard growling. “We headed to the mailbox and he (grandson, Parker) ran towards the house crying. One of them looked ill on the driveway, bleeding, bacteria, we don’t need that here.”
And… it gets better (or is that worse…?) From WREG Memphis:
The national offices of the Humane Society Of America and PETA are stepping into this situation according to Gloria Higginbotham of the Humane Society Of The Delta.
These poor dogs may end up going from the frying pan into the fire. If the dogs the mayor so moronically magnanimously ’set free’ are unlucky enough to be captured and turned over to PETA – they will likely all be killed. PETA’s own records state that the group killed more than 90% of the animals they took in in 2007.
But hey, that’s better than letting them be unlicensed and off leash.
3 comments June 15, 2008
USSA Launches Campaign Against HSUS
Contact: Sharon Hayden (614) 888-4868 ext. 226
The USSA sent a letter to the USDA explaining that the Humane Society of the United States’ “primary purpose is to advocate for sensible public policies” and not provide direct services to shelter, rescue or provide any direct services for animals in need. The USDA website inaccurately portrays it as a “shelter, rescue and welfare organization”.
HSUS supports an active lobbying campaign and actively lobbies against hunting. According to the Senate Office of Public Records, HSUS has spent up to $80,000 in a 6-month period on lobbying activities.
Despite its name, it is not in business to operate animal shelters or rescue facilities.
The USDA listings under “Shelters, Rescue and Welfare Organizations” are designed to be a resource for pet owners.
According to the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, any reference to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) as an animal welfare group, as opposed to correctly designating it an animal rights lobbying organization, gives undeserved credibility to the organization.
“We sent this letter to the department because it is well past the time for the public to be made aware of what the HSUS is all about and that isn’t going to happen if it keeps getting credit it doesn’t deserve,” said Rick Story, senior vice president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA). “The letter succinctly points out that the HSUS falls under the heading of animal rights lobbying group and why it should be referred to as such. The HSUS has a full animal rights agenda and wants to end all ownership and use of animals, no matter how responsible.”
This letter is a first step in the campaign announced last week by the USSA that will educate the media, elected officials, the public, sportsmen and the many others targeted by the animal rights group on the hidden, non-mainstream agendas of the HSUS.
As part of this campaign, the USSA has initiated the Sportsmen Against HSUS fund, which will be used in the continuing battle against the HSUS and its animal rights campaign. In addition to educating people on the group’s hidden agendas, it will fund campaigns combating the public policy threats initiated and supported by the HSUS.
Sportsmen immediately began showing their support for this campaign to expose the HSUS upon hearing of the fund’s launch.
Some recent legislative attacks on sportsmen’s rights by the HSUS include:
- the launching of a campaign to address “puppy mills,” abusive, large-scale, commercial dog breeding operations. However, the deceptive language of the HSUS-backed measures also devastates small hobby breeders, dog show kennels and sporting dog enthusiasts.
- a mandatory spay and neuter bill in California. The measure requires all dogs to be spayed or neutered by the age of six months, making it nearly impossible for sportsmen with mixed-breed sporting dogs to remain in the field.
- opposition to bills from across the country that are intended to lessen barriers for youth and newcomers to take part in hunting.
To read the letter, Click Here.
To donate to the Sportsmen Against HSUS Fund online, Click Here. For more information, please contact the USSA at 801 Kingsmill Parkway, Columbus, Ohio, 43229, call (614) 888-4868, or email info@ussportsmen.org.
The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) is a national association of sportsmen and sportsmen’s organizations that protects the rights of hunters, anglers and trappers in the courts, legislatures, at the ballot, in Congress and through public education programs. For more information about the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance and its work, call (614) 888-4868 or visit its website, www.ussportsmen.org.
Add comment May 24, 2008
Hunters 1 – HSUS 0
This just in from the United States Sportsmen’s Alliance:
The leadership at Meijer, a Michigan-based regional chain of retail superstores, has responded to the concerns of the sportsman community and ended its partnership with the anti-hunting group, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), in an online pet photo contest.
Meijer initially refused a U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) request to abandon the partnership, which according to information on the Meijer website, called for the company to donate $1 for each person that entered the contest, up to a maximum of $5,000, to the HSUS Foreclosure Pets Fund.
On Friday, April 25, the USSA sent out a call to action for sportsmen to voice their concerns over these donations to the biggest anti-hunting organization in the world. Sportsmen immediately took action, flooding the retailer with phone calls, faxes and emails.
Thanks to this action by sportsmen, Meijer has now eliminated the portion of the contest that included a donation to HSUS.
“Our program was an outgrowth of our history of supporting local humane societies. We were not aware of the concerns that exist among hunters about HSUS. As you know, we have strongly supported the hunting community over many decades,” said Meijer vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, Stacie Behler. “We have discontinued our donation program as a result of the feedback. No new funds will be collected. The funds that were collected will be used exclusively for their Foreclosure Pets Fund, which is a grants program for animal shelters, non-sheltered rescue/adoption groups and animal care and control agencies to establish, expand, or publicize services or programs that assist families caring for their pets during the current economic crisis.”
Kudos to USSA for their work. HSUS recently lobbied against dove hunting in my home state of Minnesota. In a nice bit of editorial work Tori McCormick of my local paper, the Republican Eagle, noted that:
If I did, I’d have to spend every waking hour trying to set the record straight.
Our nation was founded on the broad shoulders of free speech, and I strongly believe that everyone has the right to express their opinion, whether I agree with it or not.
After that insightful little volley where she acknowledges their right to free speech (but not to spew volumes of inane propaganda) she follows up with:
Fact is, hunters waste too much energy worrying about the antis when we should be firing back in their face a simple question: What have you done for wildlife and wildlife habitat? Nothing, that’s what. At least nothing meaningful.
When’s the last time they’ve fought for wetlands protections, healthy forests, farm bill conservation programs, sustainable fisheries and other land and water stewardship initiatives?
The anti-hunting movement has been AWOL, while hunters and anglers, historically and today, have been on the front lines slugging it out.
But when an anti-hunting group wages an anti-hunting campaign based on misinformation, lies and propaganda, a campaign whose ends would comprise conservation and science-based wildlife management, I believe the public record must be corrected.
Amen sister. While the whiney losers at HSUS and PeTA sit around on their fat, donation-supported asses accomplishing nothing more than spewing lies and promoting bad laws; groups like Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, the National Wild Turkey Foundation, Quail Unlimited, the Ruffed Grouse Society, Trout Unlimited, the Masters of Foxhounds Association of North America, and the Sierra Club support hunting AND work actively to conserve wild lands.
So, if habitat conservation and the preservation of wildlife are really important to you…. where should YOU donate?
2 comments April 30, 2008
PeTA’s Goal
This just in from Newsweek:
“Since 1998 PETA has killed more than 17,000 animals, nearly 85 percent of all those it has rescued.”
Yup. It’s true. PeTA kills animals. Pay no attention to the photos of sweet, sad abandoned pets hyped in their print and media ads. PeTA is NOT in the business of saving animals — at least not pet animals. In fact, one of their goals is the extinction of domestic cats and dogs.
“Instead of zero kills, PETA claims to be shooting for zero births.”
To control pet populations, the folks at PeTA and their allies at the Humane Society for the United States (not to be confused with the folks who run your local humane society) have chosen to focus on increasing deaths and decreasing births. And its not enough for them to recommend the spaying/neutering of all pets and measures that encourage shelters to kill very high percentages of the animals taken in – both groups are also actively lobbying to have these kinds of measures legislated in cities and states across the country.
The sad truth is that these measures are not needed to control pet populations.
According to Nathan Winograd, author of “Redemption” as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Based on data from the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, the Pet Food Manufacturers Association, and the latest census, there are more than enough homes for every dog and cat being killed in shelters every year. In fact, when I spoke to him for this article, he told me that there aren’t just enough homes for the dogs and cats being killed in shelters. There are more homes for cats and dogs opening each year than there are cats and dogs even entering shelters.”
More homes than pets? Whassup with that? If it’s true, why are we being bombarded with print and media ads publicizing the plight of MILLIONS of homeless dogs and cats doomed to languish and then die in shelters across the country?
In “Redemption,” Winograd lays the lion’s share of the blame for shelter deaths not on pet owners and communities, but on the management, staff, and boards of directors of the shelters themselves.
Redemption makes the case that bad shelter management leads to overcrowding, which is then confused with pet overpopulation. Instead of warehousing and killing animals, shelters, he says, should be using proven, innovative programs to find those homes he says are out there. They should wholeheartedly adopt the movement known as No Kill, and stop using killing as a form of population control.
In fact, in many urban areas there are now not enough shelter dogs (especially small, young dogs) to fill existing demand. According to the National Animal Interest Alliance:
In many US cities today, campaigns to end ‘pet overpopulation’ have been so successful that the demand for dogs far outstrips supply. In fact, shelters in many of these cities would have a significant percentage of empty dog runs were it not for the mushrooming practice of moving dogs around from one region to another and from one shelter to another within regions, an activity known somewhat euphemistically as humane relocation. Humane relocation began as a common sense method for helping animals to get adopted through cooperative efforts among city shelters. It made no sense for the humane society to euthanize dogs for lack of room while the local animal control agency had the space and resources to help get them adopted. Over time, as the number of surplus dogs in some cities continued to drop, they began taking in animals from greater distances.
Faced with fewer small dogs and puppies to offer the public, a handful of shelters and organizations have swapped their traditional mission for a new bottom line strategy aimed at filling consumer demands. Simply stated, they have become pet stores. Some are importing stray dogs across state lines and from foreign countries to maintain an inventory of adoptable dogs.
Despite all this, PeTA and HSUS still want to take your pet (and working) dogs away from you. By force if necessary. Here it is in their own words:
“In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.” Ingrid Newkirk, national Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Newsday, 2/21/88
“I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals…To this day I don’t feel bonded to any non-human animal. I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals.” Wayne Pacelle, of the Humane Society of the United States, quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote, 1993, p. 251
So, if you really want to help homeless dogs in a meaningful way, donate to your local humane society or a no kill shelter. Adopt a dog from a local shelter and make sure that that dog was NOT imported from Puerto Rico, Mexico or from another state. Do NOT donate money to PeTA, HSUS or other animal rights organizations.
(added 4/29/08 at 9:30 am Central)
This comment from Audie’s Gramma is so important that I’ve taken the liberty of posting it here so that no one misses it:
FOSTER a dog for a shelter or rescue. Turn him around, help him get adopted, take a break, and then FOSTER another one.
Every animal being cared for in a foster home is one more space free at the shelter.
An aggressive foster program, where animals are socialized, evaluated, rehabbed and trained by the foster humans, is one of the cornerstones of a good shelter program.
It’s one more way we can fight the reflexive use of the term “euthanasia” for a practice that is really “convenience killing.”
4 comments April 29, 2008
Which Humane Society?
The media gets it wrong again…
From yesterday’s Rochester Post-Bulletin:
Minnesota’s struggling economy is starting to trickle down to man’s best friend, and the cats they love to chase.
And as more people are forced to give up their pets to local shelters, fewer are looking to adopt. Whether it’s too expensive or people are moving into apartments that don’t allow pets, the adoption rate has dropped about 20 percent, Fry said.
Similar stories are being told across the country as people deal with home foreclosures, layoffs and reduced wages.
The number of unwanted pets dropped off at some Humane Society shelters has increased more than 125 percent, according to Humane Society of the United States spokeswoman Nancy Peterson.
Each year the Humane Society takes in 8 million animals nationally. Half of them are put to sleep, Peterson said. Locally, 25,000 of the 36,000 animals dropped off at Humane Society shelters were adopted or placed in other rescue programs, said Laurie Brickley, spokeswoman for the Animal Humane Society in the Twin Cities.
What? Animal shelters operated by the H$U$? This quote comes from their website:“
Its main actions divide into: (a) Promoting laws to restrict use/ownership, (b) propaganda in support of such laws, and (c) fundraising/self-promotional actions.
4 comments April 16, 2008
Where’s the Beef?
It’s the classic shell game…
Back on February 7, 2008 we posted on the Humane Society of the United States’ (H$U$) undercover investigation of the Hallmark Meat Packing Facility. We noted that H$U$ waited four months to make the video tape of the abused cattle public and wondered if they might have ulterior motives.
Looks like we aren’t the only ones who were suspicious.
According to the Centre Daily Times, on February 28, 2008, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office told the Riverside (California) Press-Enterprise that it had never asked the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to withhold the undercover slaughterhouse video from the public or from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This refutes sworn Congressional testimony offered on Tuesday by HSUS Public Health Director Dr. Michael Greger.
The article states:
The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a food-issues watchdog group, said today that HSUS’s decision to withhold its video from federal authorities and the public increased the possible public-health risk from potentially contaminated beef used in federal school lunch programs. This morning CCF asked the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to review Dr. Greger’s testimony and investigate whether he committed perjury.
During a hearing before the Subcommittee, Dr. Greger was asked directly why HSUS delayed sharing the video, (shot in October and November of 2007), with the U.S. Department of Agriculture until the end of January of 2008. Greger reportedly answered that “We gave this evidence over to the local District Attorney’s office, the San Bernardino County District Attorney, and they asked us not to publicly release this information, to hold off so they could carry out their own criminal investigation into the animal cruelty that was witnessed. We complied with that request.”
When further pressed on the question by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), Greger stated that “They told us to wait on any kind of public release of this information … They asked us to hold on to the information while they completed their investigation.”
The Centre Daily Times also reports that:
“San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Deborah Ploghaus, the lead investigator on the case, said she never made such a request. On Wednesday, Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle backed off Greger’s statement, saying he was uncertain if the prosecutors specifically asked to keep the footage out of public view.”
Just what exactly was HSUS uncertain about? If the group had evidence in October 2007 that potentially unsafe meat was entering the U.S. food chain (including the federal school lunch program), why did the animal rights group sit on this highly inflammatory footage for over three months?
According to the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) Director of Research David Martosko. “HSUS was clearly more interested in maximizing the political impact of its slaughterhouse video than in protecting ordinary people. And lying to Congress to cover up its apathy toward public health is truly despicable.
“When the San Bernardino County Assistant District Attorney Dennis Christy was contacted by CCF, he stated:
I can say unequivocally that we never suggested in any way – in fact, we encouraged the HSUS to cooperate with, provide information to the U.S. Department of Agriculture … [and] we had some difficulty in preparing criminal charges, because of delays in setting up any interview with the Humane Society investigator at which USDA officers would be present.
Christy further added that his office’s criminal investigation had been hampered, in part, by HSUS’s desire to keep the USDA out of the loop: “We had some difficulty in preparing criminal charges, because of delays in setting up any interview with the Humane Society investigator at which USDA officers would be present.“
Because of HSUS’s preference for sensationalism over protecting the public’s health, millions of Americans (including countless children) may have been exposed to meat that wasn’t fit for human consumption.
Apparently human children aren’t the sort of animals HSUS is interested in protecting.
5 comments March 6, 2008
Foreclosures a Threat to Pets – or Donations?
Bankruptcy and foreclosure rates are up across the country. The number of homes in the U.S. that are in some stage of foreclosure in 2007 is more than twice the number seen last year according to RealtyTrac, a company that tracks mortgage data.
According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, in recent months authorities around the country have reported numerous findings of cats, dogs, birds, horses and other animals at foreclosed houses and farms.
With this potentially high profile issue in mind, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) issued a public statement this month that it’s “worried about the situation.”
HSUS must be worried that with increasing bankruptcy rates, donations will be down this year. They’re certainly not worried about the pets or pet owners affected by the situation. Here’s a quote from Wayne Pacelle, President of HSUS: “One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.”
We got this from the folks at Activist Cash:
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.
Yes, the HSUS, is not, despite what you might think, in the business of operating animal shelters. This multi-million dollar organization spends much of its vast amounts of cash on warm, fuzzy, heart-rending ads encouraging you to give them even more money. They spend the rest on political lobbying efforts to pass state, local and federal laws that would force us all to be non-pet owning vegans.
Add comment January 24, 2008
