Sometimes a story is "too good to check." Perhaps
that's what happened when columnist Bob Krumm reproduced falsehoods from
American Hunter magazine ("Wyoming Outdoors," Feb. 25) .
It's preposterous to suggest that The HSUS opposes
pets - we put significant resources into promoting responsible pet ownership. We
also spay and neuter animals and support local shelters. The HSUS is not
"anti-meat eating," although routine abuse of animals raised in factory farms
concerns us. Nor do we accept money for endorsements. In fact, our bylaws
prohibit product endorsements.
As for hunting, anyone who looks beyond the
self-interest of the hunting industry can readily determine that our programs
and campaigns target the most despicable practices such as canned hunts and
trophy hunting.
If Krumm had checked his facts, he would have
learned that The HSUS has 8.5 million members and constituents - one of every 40
Americans help us protect animals, preserve wildlife habitat in 29 states,
combat animal fighting, and investigate cruelty cases. Recently, they helped
send Billings resident David Pauli, who directs our Northern Rockies regional
office, to Sri Lanka as part of a rapid response team that vaccinated stray dogs
against rabies soon after the tsunami disaster hit.
Krumm did a disservice both to The HSUS, our almost
25,000 constituents in Montana, and Gazette readers. He demands responsible
behavior while regurgitating falsehoods that could have been clarified with a
quick call to our Billings office.
Wayne Pacelle
President and CEO
The Humane
Society of the United States
Washington, D.C.
The March issue of American Hunter magazine has a thought-provoking article titled "Who's Bankrolling the Enemy?" It describes the headquarters of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Washington, D.C., as being "the antihunting capitol of the world."
The Humane Society has tax-exempt status as a nonprofit agency so its books are open to the public. In 2002, the group had revenues just shy of $61 million. Thanks to a lot of overseas operations, the true magnitude of their earnings can't be estimated.
The author of the article lays out a convincing documentary on how many unwitting people help fund the Humane Society. One of the easiest ways is through misinformation. Many donors confuse the Humane Society of the United States with genuine animal welfare organizations like the American Humane Association. The end result is that many people donate to the Humane Society of the U.S. thinking they are helping to finance humane shelters for dogs and cats; in reality the Humane Society of the U.S. owns no animal shelters in the United States.
According to American Hunter, "PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has quietly succeeded in achieving a bloodless internal takeover of HSUS. HSUS is anti-hunting, anti-meat eating and is even against owning pets."
One of the ways the Humane Society of the U.S. raises money is to offer endorsements to corporations. Basically, if a company pays enough money, the Humane Society of the U.S. will certify "that its food and/or clothing is environmentally friendly." Amazingly, the Humane Society of the U.S. doesn't bother to inspect the operations, according to the article, but says the USDA does.
A lot of trust funds are funneled to the Humane Society of the U.S. It seems that megabucks are given to HSUS for a variety of reasons, such as stopping hunts for black bears in New Jersey.
Even the Sierra Club has gone antihunting, according to the American Hunter article. Though it was formed to help promote use of our forests and mountains, it is now out to stop hunting. The legal arm of the Sierra Club sued to stop black bear hunting in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. It also was able to stop an elk study in Oregon because the research pointed to reducing cougar populations as a way to increase the elk herd.
Yet, according to the Sierra Club's Web site, "approximately 20 percent of Sierra Club members reported buying hunting and/or fishing licenses in the past year, and Sierra Club policy explicitly recognizes sport-hunting and fishing as a valuable wildlife management tool."
One of the most galling ways that Humane Society of the U.S. and other antihunting groups have raised money is by Hollywood stars' donations and endorsements. People like Pamela Anderson, Pierce Brosnan, James Cromwell, Bill Maher, Bob Barker, Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Redford help out the antihunting/animal rights cause with their donations and endorsements. Of course, this is a free country so they are free to donate to whomever they choose, but I also choose to not donate to any of their activities, i.e., I don't watch movies and programs they are in/on.
Bill Maher, host of Politically Incorrect, was quoted as saying, "To those people who say, 'My father is alive because of animal experimentation,' I say, 'Yeah, well good for you. This dog died so that your father could live.' Sorry, but I am just not behind that sort of trade-off."
I have often thought that animal-rights activists should have to live on a vegetarian commune somewhere where the deer, cottontail rabbits, wood chucks, raccoons, blackbirds, crows, rats, gophers, moles and ground squirrels could devastate their crops. How long would it be before they realized that if they were going to live through the winter, they would have to stop the depredations on their vegetables and other crops?
Maybe they would live by their ideals and starve to death rather than harm an animal, or maybe they would come to their senses and determine that they would have to kill and harass the animals so that the people could live. It is always interesting to contemplate how these misinformed people would react if their lives were threatened either directly or indirectly by the brown-eyed critters.
It is time that the animal rights crowd realizes that people are part and parcel of the living world. The animal world is composed of herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. Each class of animal has to have the others in order to survive.
Bob Krumm, of Sheridan, is the Wyoming outdoor correspondent for The Billings Gazette. Contact him at rkrumm@fiberpipe.net.