Editorial pages and blogs crackled this month with the unfamiliar term "downer cows" -- meaning animals that arrive at a slaughterhouse too sick or weak to stand -- following the release of a gruesome video that showed such cows being prodded to their feet for slaughter. The video, shot at the Chino, Calif.-based Westland/Hallmark Packing Co. by an undercover employee of the Humane Society of the United States, led to the largest-ever beef recall by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.It also chalked up another publicity coup for the society, a 54-year-old nonprofit based in Washington that has brought to the mainstream the formerly fringe issue of farm animal welfare. Driving the agenda has been Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle, a Yale-educated animal rights activist who favors polished coercion over shouting down opponents. Whether companies and farmers agree with him or simply recognize a new market for humanely produced food, Pacelle and the Humane Society have won changes at large food companies in the past year, including with Smithfield Foods, Burger King, Denny's and Safeway. Pacelle sat down for a vegetarian meal this week to talk about his group's efforts to mainstream animal welfare issues.Q: Was the Westland case your biggest victory? Pacelle: It's been a big story. It showed that even with a relatively small- to medium-sized plant, there are national consequences if one of (them) engages in reckless behavior. It's a lot of exposure, it's not a victory until we get animal reforms. We were concerned about downer cows because of the inhumane handling issues. They weigh 700 pounds, 1,000 pounds. They can't be easily moved without doing something unhealthy to them. And then we saw what's happening in Europe with mad- cow disease and saw all of this data that was being churned out about the greater susceptibility of non-ambulatory livestock to have BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy). The data showed that they were 50 times more likely. It's a needless threat to the beef industry. Q: Is this a purely economic issue or is there something about the quality of the meat that's changed by animal handling? A: We're into it because of humane concerns. We also believe our concerns have a lot of relevance to other social concerns in society. When you have dogfighting you often see other criminal activity. When you see animal abuse in a household you often see spousal abuse. When you have mistreatment of animals you often have unsafe food. Q: To what do you attribute the Humane Society's success? A: There's a more hospitable social climate for these concerns. It also reflects a larger concern about our own health and well-being, the rise of organic products and the public's interest in that. I made a commitment to this 3 1/2 years ago that we were going to introduce a commitment to animal agriculture and the systemic mistreatment of animals. ... We filed lawsuits and legal actions because we created a new litigation division with 12 full-time attorneys. We merged with several other organizations to consolidate the animal welfare movement more than it was in order to build strength and mass to win some of these fights. We've grown our membership to 10 million. Q: How do you decide what are appropriate animal welfare measures? A: We have a simple approach ... which is to curb the worst abuses that humans subject animals to. Q: Don't some of these measures mean more expensive food?A: At the end of the day, it's a pretty minimal cost to consumers. I think it's an insult to farmers to say they have to do things the way they've always done them, that they can't engineer animal welfare into their production scheme. To cram seven or eight hens into a cage where each bird has 67 square inches according to the industry standard -- which is two-thirds the size of an 8 1/2-by-11 sheet of paper -- is just cruel and inhumane. Q: What's your approach to food companies? Is it fire and brimstone?A: No. It's more of a carrot and a stick. We say that there are some serious questions about how animals are being raised for food and you can take relatively small steps and make enormous progress in this arena. And you will then be able to tout your corporate social responsibility.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Humane Society wins fights with food industry
Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 12:23
H$U$
7 Things You Didn’t Know About H$U$
1. H$U$ does not operate or have direct control over any animal shelter. Buried deep within H$U$'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.
2. Since its inception, H$U$ has tried to limit the choices of American consumers, opposing dog breeding, conventional livestock and poultry farming, rodeos, circuses, horse racing, marine aquariums, fur trapping and medical research.
3. H$U$ raises enough money to help finance animal shelters in every single state, with money to spare, yet it doesn't operate a single one anywhere. Instead, H$U$ 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. H$U$ spends $2 million each year on travel expenses alone, just keeping its multi-national agenda going.
4. While most local animal shelters are under-funded and unsung, H$U$ has accumulated $113 million in assets and built a recognizable brand by capitalizing on the confusion its very name provokes.
5. The current president of H$U$, Wayne Pacelle, is a former officer of PeTA.
6. H$U$ is currently under investigation by the Attorney General of Louisiana in regards to the disposition of Katrina funds. H$U$ has been under investigation by the FBI for their links to domestic terrorist organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). One of their current officers, John P. Goodwin is a former member of ALF and a convicted felon for acts of terrorism related to animals.
7. H$U$ consistently jumps on the bandwagon of any animal issue to raise funds even if they are NOT directly involved. Most recently they used the Michael Vick case as a major fund raiser, even though H$U$ had nothing to do with the investigation or care of the Vick dogs.
Sources:
www.consumerfreedom.com
www.pet-law.com
www.naiaonline.org
HSUS
If Wayne Pacelle and HSUS care so much about animals, why did they wait four months to alert the country about the abuses they had filmed? Questions about this are being asked in Congress (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27food.html?_r=1&oref=slogin )
Any truly humane person, upon seeing those abuses would have alerted the USDA IMMEDIATELY and, if the USDA's response was slow, would not have waited that long to give the film to the media and would have alerted the management of the slaughterhouse that the media now has evidence of a very bad problem that they MUST stop right now! If they had done that, many fewer cows would have suffered through their last moments.
But HSUS waited until the possibly tainted meat from downer cows got into the food chain. And HSUS, with over $100,000,000.00/year in donations to work with, does very thorough research and there is no way that they did not know that much of that meat would be going to school lunch programs. Call me cynical but I have seen so much duplicity from HSUS that I am convinced that they waited to release their footage until our nation's children had eaten possibly tainted meat because it would make such a much bigger story. And it worked. The media is eating up (no pun intended) this story and no one but one congressman is publicly questioning HSUS's motives for the four-month wait.
When Wayne Pacelle took over as HSUS CEO, the organization shifted to a radical vegan agenda. Pacelle's words speak for themselves: http://www.naiaonline.org/articles/archives/animalrightsquote.htm
HSUS is very cleverly crafting a legal strategy to move our nation, small step by small step, to a place where we will all be forced to be petless vegans. (Be sure to look at those Pacelle quotes if you think I am exaggerating. And Ingrid Newkirk's (PETA) too. Pacelle got his start in PETA.)
The previous post mentions a lots of HSUS's sins but there was a more recent one that I just witnessed that illustrates my point. I listened two weeks ago to a hearing in Maine on two bills that will vastly expand the powers of Animal Control in that state, an AC that is run by "animal rights" fanatics and has been accused of many abuses. The Maine HSUS rep repeatedly assured all the concerned dog and cat breeders in Maine that HSUS ONLY wants to stop the evil "puppy mills" that keep animals in cruel conditions and they want to support "good breeders". (Of course, we ALL want to stop the suffering of animals!!!) But that HSUS rep was either lying through her teeth or she is unaware of the longer range agenda of the HSUS because, the very next day, an egregious mandatory neutering law was passed in Los Angeles which, despite its "supposed" exceptions for serious breeders, when you look at the law closely, it will make almost all breeding of cats and dogs in Los Angeles illegal. And who was singled out for praise for his work in getting this law passed? Yep, the local HSUS rep.
There is absolutely no way a law like that could be passed in Maine right now and HSUS knows it so they are supporting legislation that will edge Maine a bit closer to it and they will be back again and again in the years to come until they can force a ban on breeding in Maine.
HSUS has conned people into donating that over $100,000,000.00 a year by getting these people to think that their money will be going to help all those sad-faced animals in the HSUS ads but it won't. (See the previous post. Thank you, Anonymous - but you really should have left your name; we need to stand up proudly against the bullies.) But there is a way to stop all that killing of animals in shelters and HSUS and PETA don't want you to know about it. Nathan Winograd has written a wonderful book, "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Movement in America" which details what he has learned from his extremely successful efforts in San Francisco and Tompkins County in turning around shelters which killed a lot of animals into places where no adoptable animal is euthanized but both PETA and HSUS are doing their best to demonize Winograd. Could this be because, if he should succeed nationally, they would no longer have those pics of sad animals to con the public out of donations? He's a dedicated vegan and, definitely, one of them but he puts what will work to save animals first. HSUS and PETA don't.
Geraldine Clarke
Balabar Salukis
It seems the critics of the
It seems the critics of the ever-effective HSUS become more desperate every day to undermine the positive growth of this organization - they appear to be capable of nothing but to repeat several "unknown facts" about its operations and mandatorily employ the same animal-rights-radicalism hyperbolic warning.
I was a disheartened former Peta member when Mr. Pacelle became the CEO, and in the time since he has contributed a most innovative, awesome new force to the animal protection movement.
I welcome the detractors to continue their pathetic slander as this wonderful group continues to grow in potency and popularity. The fight for the protection of animals is one of the most noble deeds one may choose to engage in, and those who want to keep things in the dark ages do not have sense or basic human decency on their side.
Thank you, Mr. Pacelle
It seems the critics of the
You may wish to believe that Pacelle is a truth-teller but he isn't. I watched him testify in the California State Capitol for AB2110 where he insisted that things were true when we had just presented absolute documentation from every state in the union that what he was saying was untrue. It is unfortunate that there is no way in this forum that I can present those many hundreds of pages of documentation that it takes to show that he was not telling the truth but that documentation exists and it is definitely true.
Janay L.(you don't have the guts to tell us your real name?), HSUS is definitely not "ever-effective". In the last year, we true animal lovers have finally gotten ourselves organized and we are exposing the HSUS lies right and left and we are now winning some battles on the legislative front.
And what is this "they appear to be capable of nothing but to repeat several "unknown facts" about its operations and mandatorily employ the same animal-rights-radicalism hyperbolic warning"?
I'm sorry but that makes absolutely no sense. Please re-phrase it. "unknown facts"???? "mandatorily" is not a word.
If you are going to convince people, you've got to do a whole lot better than that.
Geraldine Clarke is a dog
Geraldine Clarke is a dog breeder that doesn't report her income and does not pay taxes. She takes advatage of lack of breeder licensing laws.
Since humane groups like HSUS want breeders to be licensed (and therefore potentially expose their lucrative businesses) breeders like Geraldine spend enormous amounts of time smearing animal welfare representatives.
Most of Geraldine's fanatacism comes from this lobbyist http://www.consumerdeception.com who has also worked with the dog breeder/puppy mill industry.
Nathan Winograd also got promoted by this lobbyist, and that's the reason that dog breeders support Nathan Winograd. Winograd opposes breeder regulation in exchange for breeder promotion for his book and foundation.
(And Geraldine knows full well that Tompkins County and SF failed miserably)
Big money, tax free business! THAT's WHY breeders hate groups like HSUS that expose them and their criminal acts
Coco is a crackpot
Interesting strategy, attack the credibility of those who expose the HSUS and their lies! The truth is, Wayne Pacelle wishes all domestic animals eliminated. Here are his own words:
"We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding." Wayne Pacelle, President, Humane Society of the US.
“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.”
When asked if he envisioned a future without pets, “If I had my personal view, perhaps that might take hold. In fact, I don’t want to see another dog or cat born.” Wayne Pacelle quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote, 1993, p. 266.
Thank goodness we have breeders, people who love dogs, (unlike Coco and Whacko Wayno, who hate people and dogs both). Without breeders, we would be unable to enjoy these wonderful companions in our lives well into the future.
BTW, the only ones making money from the dog breeding "business" are the veterinarians and the registries; possibly the commercial breeders....and they will be the main source of dogs once the HSUS eliminates all home hobby breeders.
Oh, almost forgot...the imported dogs will become an even bigger source.
http://petpac.net/news/headlines/importedpuppies/
Winograd is correct, overpopulation is a myth. SF a failure? Don't think so....why do you think they have to import dogs into their shelters?
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