HumaneWatch

• Farmers begin opening the barn doors to show what HSUS is getting wrong
• Whole Foods Market will sell HSUS vegan drivel kibble
• Eugene, Oregon citizen journalist spells out exactly how HSUS got its D rating
• HSUS is putting money toward videos meant to scare people into vegetarianism
• Your Daily Shelter: Oklahoma’s Humane Society of Grove & Grand Lake (Donate. Volunteer. Adopt.)

One of the first articles on this blog cast doubt on the Humane Society of the United States’s frequent claim that it has 11 million “supporters.” We now know, thanks to a recent HSUS fundraising letter, that the group has (at most) just 1.2 million members. (By our math, that number could be as low as 420,000.) The “11 million” claim is pure puffery that HSUS uses to try to increase influence in its lobbying efforts.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, perhaps HSUS will stop trying to inflate its influence in Washington (and countless state capitals) by a whole order of magnitude. But never fear, the group is already starting to use its fuzzy math overseas. In a press release issued today in Great Britain, Humane Society International (HSI) claims to have “11 million supporters globally.”

Here we go again.

In 2007, the Humane Society of the United States got a federal law passed that prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from spending tax dollars to inspect horse meat. So although there’s nothing illegal about slaughtering horses for human consumption, the practice is halted as a practical matter. HSUS couldn’t be happier with that, of course.

Has the result been good for horses? The answer isn't as obvious as you think.

Unwanted horses are as much a part of life as unwanted dogs and cats, but the economics of the situation are a bit different. For starters, eating dogs and cats is pretty uncommon in the Western world, while horse meat can be found in most European and Canadian grocery stores (and all over Japan).

Sadly, Americans euthanize millions of “surplus” (we hate that term) pets every year, and no dog owner expects to “sell” his or her animal at the end of its life. On the contrary, euthanizing a family pet costs money. Most horse owners, however (especially in the American West), consider the animals to be livestock. Until a few years ago, a horse would actually bring a price when it was time to “put it down,” because there was a commercial market for the animal’s meat.

But no more, thanks to HSUS. The animal rights group doesn’t seem to have a problem with euthanizing horses, but it continues to oppose processing them for meat. This has created a cash crunch for horse owners all over America. And human nature being what it is, the end result is a lot of unwanted horses being turned loose to fend for themselves—or worse.

Deep down, Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle is so committed to protecting animals that sometimes people—yes, people—become collateral damage.

What else could we possibly conclude from reading this evening’s article on Pacelle’s blog?

In a fit of self-righteous pique probably triggered by this weekend’s love-fest of a national conference, Pacelle has declared that a federal government plan to round up and euthanize 150,000 Canada geese in New York is “wrong and unacceptable.”

To which we say: We’ll see your “wrong and unacceptable,” and raise you a “U.S. Airways Flight 1549” miracle.

Yes, that Flight 1549: the doomed January 2009 takeoff which Captain Sully Sullenberger somehow brought down safely in the Hudson River. Without—and here’s the miraculous part—without losing a single human life. No thanks to the geese that caused the crash, of course.

• On Saturday The Sacramento Bee gave us space to ask if HSUS wants a totally egg-free California
• Wayne Pacelle strategizes in San Francisco: "I think the best thing would be to start with [banning] the sale of dogs and cats from [all] pet stores"
• The Buckeye Compromise is already making some farmers consider moving to Pennsylvania or Indiana
• Hey you! Have you written a letter like this one yet?
• Your Daily Shelter: Michigan’s AuSable Valley Animal Shelter (Donate. Volunteer. Adopt.)

Disclaimer: No one at HumaneWatch is a constitutional lawyer. We don’t even play them on TV. So if any genuine legal eagles out there have a smarter or more cogent analysis of this, we’re all ears.

Maybe California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has forgotten about all those thermoses full of raw eggs he used to gulp down in his bodybuilding days. Or perhaps he’s still mad at the anonymous protester who hurled a raw egg at him during a 2003 campaign stop. (Schwarzenegger shook it off and said “this guy owes me bacon now.”)

But for whatever reason, the Governator signed a bill into law earlier this month (“AB 1437”) which could “Terminate” the concept of cheap, plentiful eggs in his state. The new law, heavily promoted and lobbied by the Humane Society of the United States, will extend the reach of Proposition 2—the 2008 ballot initiative requiring egg farmers to give their chickens far more precious real estate. AB 1437 requires eggs imported into California to follow the Proposition 2 standards imposed on in-state farmers.

Both Proposition 2 and this new companion law will take effect in January 2015. So we can expect four more years legal wrangling over just how much wing-flapping room the law requires for each bird.

Oh, goodie.

If you're wringing your hands today because you didn't attend the "Taking Action For Animals" conference put on by the Humane Society of the United States, take heart: You didn't miss much.

Several people who were at the Washington, DC event all weekend report that the whole thing was a big snooze-fest. We've uploaded a copy of the official program to the HumaneWatch Document Library, and one of those stalwart attendees is working on a first-person report for HumaneWatchers to read.

So stay tuned--we'll soon have our own post-game analysis to balance out the rose-colored PR emanating this morning from 2100 L Street in Washington.

HSUS staffers and their convention-goers are busily lobbying Congress today; so if you work on Capitol Hill, it might be a good day to print up a bunch of HumaneWatch ads and flyers. Just a suggestion.