And before you make your decision, please know who Humane Society of the United States is......(not taking a stand, just making sure y'all know who is "rebuking" this story that was on AOL and Yahoo and the United Press)
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 [by] 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.
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."
Hmmm seems maybe they do have the answer... they probably have enough money to take care of all the unwanted horses...
When John Hoyt took over its presidency in 1970, the Humane Society of the United States had 30,000 members and an annual budget of about $500,000. By 1994, HSUS's annual revenue had grown to $22 million. In 2003, that number jumped to $123 million, including nearly $3 million in investment income.
At the end of 2003, the nonprofit HSUS declared assets totaling over $113 million, including almost $16 million in cash and over $80 million invested in securities. It pays over $11.8 million in annual salaries, and another $3 million in employee benefits and pension contributions. When HSUS merged with the Fund For Animals in 2004, the group announced that its 2005 operating budget would be $95 million.
Raising money is Job One. HSUS will even adopt conflicting positions in order to satisfy individual patrons. Two HSUS donors once wrote to John Hoyt with very different views of the sinking of Icelandic whaling ships by Paul Watson's violent Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the late 1980s. In one response, Hoyt agreed with the donor that Watson's actions were wrong, writing: "I am unequivocally opposed to any and all acts of violence in the pursuit of efforts to protect animals from abuse and suffering." In the other, he declared that Sea Shepherd's work was "indeed, a daring and masterful bit of James Bond on behalf of the great whales