Humane Society Desperately Attacks the CCF
(Editor's Note: This article is a direct rebuttal to the Humane Society's Humane Society Responds to Attacks on Animal Rights Record.)
The level of deception exhibited by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) never ceases to amaze us. Its baseless attacks on the Center for Consumer Freedom are a good indication of the organization’s shrill tone, and the desperation it must be feeling as its house of cards begins (finally) to tumble.
If there’s a “front group” in this story, it’s HSUS. The organization “fronts” for the PETA-approved vegan way of life while pretending to represent average pet owners. Conversely, we are very open about who we are, what we do, and why. It seems HSUS has no stomach for answering charges — only making them.
HSUS complains so bitterly about our work because we are the only voice pointing out the dishonesty inherent in raising money for one thing and spending it on another. We’re happy to absorb the rumor-mongering and false innuendo of HSUS and other groups that jealously guard their unearned public credibility if it means we can continue to shine disinfecting sunlight on HSUS and the rest of the animal rights industry.
WSB-TV is to be commended for its daring report. Few American charities engage in fundraising as brazenly deceptive as HSUS’s. For in-depth information about HSUS, readers can visit http://www.HumaneWatch.org.
While routinely pretending to be a traditional pet-sheltering “humane society,” HSUS spends precious little of its resources caring for homeless pets. Our analysis of HSUS’s 2007 tax filings indicates that less than 4 percent of its spending consisted of financial assistance to genuine humane societies and other hands-on dog and cat shelters.
Yet a majority of Americans, when polled, indicate the mistaken beliefs that (1) HSUS is a legitimate umbrella group for local pet shelters, and (2) a significant portion of HSUS’s fundraising directly benefits pet shelters in their communities. This misperception only serves to benefit HSUS and the rest of the well-heeled animal rights industry. It certainly doesn’t benefit America’s needy pets.
HSUS currently has over $200 million in assets. It pays nearly $22 million each year in salaries and benefits. That’s more than five times what it gives to pet shelters that do the real work of caring for dogs and cats.
According to a 2008 Los Angeles Times investigation, less than 12 percent of money raised for HSUS by California telemarketers actually ends up in HSUS’s bank account. The rest is kept by professional fundraisers. Excluding two campaigns run for HSUS by the “Build-a-Bear Workshop” retail chain, which consisted of the sale of surplus stuffed animals (not really “fundraising”), HSUS’s “yield” number from this telemarketing shrinks to just 3 percent.
In 2004, HSUS ran a telemarketing campaign in Connecticut with fundraisers who promised to return a minimum of zero percent of the proceeds. The campaign raised over $1.4 million. Not only did absolutely none of that money go to HSUS, but the group paid $175,000 for the telemarketing work.
HSUS has built and maintained its position in the animal rights industry through a consistent pattern of subtle but effective fundraising manipulation, portraying itself as the savior of displaced dogs and cats while leaving the real heroes—local humane societies and other pet shelters—to wither on the vine. The United States desperately needs a real national humane society that will singularly devote itself to funding pet shelters. At present all we have is HSUS, which is far more concerned with funding its own crusade against meat, eggs, dairy foods, fur and leather, circuses, rodeos, hunting and fishing, and lifesaving disease research that depends on the judicious use of laboratory animals.
Practically speaking, HSUS functions as a bigger and more media-savvy version of the more familiar People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The principal differences are in scale (HSUS is far richer), tone (HSUS appears more moderate for the sake of fundraising), and a greater emphasis on political activity. During the 2008 federal election cycle, HSUS spent more money than ExxonMobil, Citigroup, or General Motors.
HSUS’s public deceptions go far beyond its apparent hoarding of cash in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Beginning on the day of NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s 2007 dogfighting indictment, HSUS raised money online with the false promise that it would “care for the dogs seized in the Michael Vick case.” The New York Times later reported that HSUS wasn’t caring for Vick’s dogs at all. And HSUS president Wayne Pacelle told the Times that his group recommended that government officials “put down” (that is, kill) the dogs rather than adopt them out to suitable homes. HSUS later quietly altered its Internet fundraising pitch.
If HSUS wants to be taken seriously by Americans who care about animals, it should designate a majority of its fundraising as pass-through grants to pet shelters in the communities of its donors. Anything less will be insufficient in our present era of political accountability and transparency.
Read the original article from the Humane Society, Humane Society Responds to Attacks on Its Animal Rights Record
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This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with all of HSUS puppy mill , factory farm and animal poison lab hell hole expose's lately? I notice in the last few years the "responsible breeding" community and the "responsible animal poisoning community" and the "responsible slaughter community", really seem to have their noses up the rear of CCF . They enthusiastically flock to the boards to whine and tear up about the "poor puppies" !
Oooooo HSUS and PETA are soooo mean! Why don't they leave us alone!!!
It's disgusting, these shills whining about "the shelters" while they suck up to the puppy mill slime and rake in millions keeping their animal hell holes chugging along... destroying health, animals and the environment .... CCF should be shut down by the IRS for impersonating a "non-profit" and banned from the internet .. Who ever heard of a "consumers group" funded by billion dollar corporations like Tysons Food, Cargill, Monsanto, Phillip Morris, Dean Foods, Wendy's and Outback Steakhouse?
OMG, Somebody ordered the spinach lasagna instead of a McDonald's torture burger! How dare those ACTIVISTS talk about my BIG MAC that way ... MY RIGHTS ARE BEING INFRINGED UPON! 10 billion land animals killed for food every year in the U.S. (over a million an hour) AND THEIR STILL NOT SATISFIED! How blood thirsty can you get?
If your corporate slug employers didn't spend 24/7 brutalizing animals, people and the planet, we wouldn't need animal and human rights advocates.
Tyson has been brutalizing both it's animals and employees for decades... It's been videotaped, and sworn to in signed affidavit by employees, that cows are regularly gutted and skinned alive... still kicking, struggling (and sometimes injuring the not much better off employees in the process). Employees which Tyson has beat up on and attacked while on strike for better or at least safer, working conditions ...
Monsanto and its dog poisoning labs like Huntingdon Life Sciences, kill 500 animals day... but you had better not be concerned about it or else you might be accused by CCF of having the dreaded ANIMAL RIGHTS AGENDA! Their sugar daddy, Phillip Morris , started them off with the initial funding... Phillip Morris, whose testing laboratory Covance is the largest importer of primates in the U.S. and the world's largest breeder of laboratory dogs. The way they torture these poor animals over tobacco and toxins, is enough to make your blood run cold...
92 % of all animal testing fails human trials, according to the FDA in 2004... It's done for purely legal and financial reasons...(and because that way, company's like Monsanto can PROVE that their poisons and chemicals are SAFE (until they kill enough people to take them off the market)... Ever wonder why no drugs are ever around for more than 10 or 20 years? If it weren't for Covance Laboratories tobacco would have had labels in the 50's...
But Richard Berman and David Martosko only want to protect the defenseless consumer against rabid vegetarians!
THEY CARE ABOUT PEOPLE!!! That's why when they're not slandering animal and health activists... They're busy trying to make sure their billionaire, sociopath employers don't have to raise minimum wage a penny... or contribute a nickle to work men's comp when their employees get sliced open or fall into manure pits... I think most people would puke their guts out if they had to visit one of YOUR CLIENT's HELL HOLES.. But isn't that the real problem? Not radicals or VEGETARIANS trying to force their values on you... But exposure...
What a happy day when that bloated sociopath David Martosko keels over from a Wendy's induced coronary... Until then, his sugar daddy's and mommy's are cackling all the way to the bank. No less than 8 members of the Cargill-MacMillan meat packing family are Forbes 400 Richest Americans.
Cargill MacMillan, Jr. - net worth 4.3 billion.
Whitney MacMillan - 4.3 billion
Marion MacMillan Pictet - 4.3 billion
Pauline MacMillan Keinath - - 4.3 billion
James R. Cargill, II - 1.6 billion
Mary Janet Morse Cargill - $1.6 billion
Marianne Cargill Liebmann - $1.6 billion
Austen S. Cargill, II - 1.3 billion
400 Richest Americans - Forbes 2009
CEO Don Tyson was paid $20.9 million in 2003. When his company was demanding wage and benefit cuts from impoverished meat packing workers, his annual compensation nearly tripled. He is worth one billion dollars and growing. Don Tyson has paid over $2 million in SEC fines for misleading disclosure of personal benefits.
Eric Schlosser Tyson's Moral Anchor, The Nation, June 24, 2004
400 Richest Americans - Forbes 2009
Wendy's/Arby's Group annual salaries
Roland C. Smith - CEO - 3.22 Millon
J. David Karam - CEO - Wendy's - 2.12 M
Stephen E. Hare - CFO - 1.29 M
Nils H. Okeson - General Counsel - 1.06 M
Sharon Barton - Chief Admin Officer - 1.23 M
Wendy's/Arby's Group, Yahoo Finance 2009
Wow, looks like they've managed to sock away a few bucks paying their employees minimum wage!
Thanks CCF for continuing to do the research and presenting the truth! I can only pray that Americans wake up and start donating to their local rescues and shelters who really need the help. Charity starts at home! That is so true. People who still support the HSUS are blind. The facts are there and public knowledge. What do they not get? What will these animal lovers and pet owners say when Animal Control comes knocking on their door to take their pets away because of some new HSUS-pushed legislation?
The HSUS had to be pushed to put any of its Katrina money into anything vaguely resembling its alleged intended purpose. It has participated in unethical raids on commercial breeders, lied to get warrants, and denied due process. This has been going on for a very long time.
Were they ever an ethical organization, they would have performed ethically from the start. There is nothing that they can do to mend the damage that they have caused and no one should encourage anyone to see the HSUS in a better light because exposure has forced it to try to look better. I don't think that they know how anyway.
Well, HSUS spews a lot of big words & big outlandish claims to sway the opinion of the public into thinking they are dedicated to feeding & sheltering the POOR little animals in their advertisements. But less than 5% of the HSUS income [from donations, thought to go to the animals care] goes to helping animals & 96% goes to the management, wages, lifestyle & pimping their political cronies.
If you want to read about it in their own IRS income tax 2005-6-7 forms: [You have to register with GuidStar to access the forms......wait for it to load, it is large.]
It is really shameful the way the HSUS has been fraudulently presenting themselves as the Knight in Shining Armor for the Animals when in truth they are really using those donations to feather-their-own beds & those of their political bed-fellows.
The way that Wayne carries on just makes me so mad sometimes.
You've said that so many millions of dollars are taken in by the HSUS. Is that the amount of actual donations or the amount that reaches the HSUS? Either way it's a lot of money to be diverting from real animal welfare programs.