This is a point-counterpoint article that appeared in the Fall 2003 edition of No Compromise, a now-defunct publication that described itself as “the militant, direct action publication of grassroots animal liberationists and their supporters.”

The two writers are Paul Shapiro and Kevin Kjonaas. Shapiro later became a campaign manger at the Humane Society of the United States. Kjonaas was later convicted on federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism charges and received a six-year prison sentence.

While Kjonaas advocated leveraging fear and trepidation against animal-rights targets, Shapiro argued in favor of using the mainstream media to promote their common agenda—which both agreed was “animal liberation.”

Shapiro wrote (emphasis added):

Like it or not, hundreds of millions of Americans consume mainstream media every day-along with animal products, as well … These are the very people who must change their eating habits in order for animal liberation to become possible.

While it would be great to wait for the public to start consuming independent media, to force animals to wait for their liberation until such a societal shift takes place is both unfair and unethical …

The only way we can fundamentally reduce the level of animal suffering is to reduce the number of animals people eat.

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This PDF contains a brief excerpt from page 18 of the 2010 "Watchdog Report" from Animal People News. (A complete printed copy costs $25 and can be ordered online.)

It includes a basic assessment of the Humane Society of the United States's financial health, and of its major initiatives during 2008. Financial information is drawn from HSUS's 2008 federal income tax return (Form 990). 

Among other things, Animal People notes that HSUS has a vegan-only meal policy for events it sponsors:

Food Policy: Since 2005 HSUS has required that "At HSUS internal events where food is served and to which staff and/or guests have been invited to participate, HSUS will purchase vegan fare and we will strive to have organic products ... External events under the control of HSUS should also provide for the purchase of all non-animal products. If that is not possible, events should be vegetarian—no meat (including fish and shellfish). For events sponsored by HSUS with other organizations, strong efforts should be made to serve all vegan or vegetarian food. Partnering organizations are to be informed that vegan options should be available and that they are preferred.

In addition, Animal People provides the result of its own analysis of HSUS's fundraising expenses, as they compare with "program" expenses (those that are not considered "overhead"). According to this analysis, HSUS spends one-half (50 percent) of every dollar on fundraising.

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This file contains a copy of the Spring/Summer 1997 issue of The Abolitionist, a newsletter published by the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing (COK). That organization was co-founded (and its newsletter was co-edited) by Paul Shapiro and Miyun Park. Shapiro would later go on to lead the Humane Society of the United States's farm-animal programs. Park was hired away to HSUS at the same time as Shapiro, served as a vice-president, and then moved on to lead the Global Animal Partnership.

This issue of The Abolitionist included a two-page photo spread (pages 10-11 of the PDF) titled "The ALF Strikes Again ... and Again ... and Again ..." The images are of Animal Liberation Front (ALF) crimes (mostly vandalism) committed against fur retailers in the District of Columbia.

In addition, COK used this issue to offer the sale of videos glorifying the ALF. For $5 and a blank VHS tape, readers could receive copies of two films about the underground organization, which has been designated a "terrorist group" by the FBI and many foreign governments.

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This file contains a copy of the Winter 1997 issue of The Abolitionist, a newsletter published by the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing (COK). That organization was co-founded (and its newsletter was co-edited) by Paul Shapiro and Miyun Park. Shapiro would later go on to lead the Humane Society of the United States's farm-animal programs. Park was hired away to HSUS at the same time as Shapiro, served as a vice-president, and then moved on to lead the Global Animal Partnership.

In this issue of The Abolitionist, COK openly recruited readers to join a local segment of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) targeting a Washington, DC-based fur retailer named Miller's Furs. The ALF is an FBI-designated domestic terrorism group responsible for animal rights-related crimes including attempted murder and (literally) dozens of arsons.

Under Shapiro's leadership, COK appeared to play both sides of the legal fence: The group published accounts and photos of several crimes (mostly vandalism) while also running a forked-tongue disclaimer stating that it "does not endorse (nor condemn) and illegal acts."

Shapiro himself is pictures on page 6 of the PDF, holding a protest bullhorn. The photo is captioned: "Shut Miller's Down, Run 'Em Out of Town."

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In this editorial essay from 1997, HSUS Chief Operating Officer Michael Markarian waxed philosophical about arift between grassroots animal-rights groups and larger national organizations like those that employed him. At the time, he worked for the Fund For Animals as its Director of Campaigns and Media.

In one part of the essay, Markarian draws distinctions among four types of animal activists, providing examples of "effective" and "ineffective" versions of each. Along the way, he appears to defend illegal activity in the name of “animal liberation,” a position that HSUS has takengreat pains to publicly avoid:

While the “citizen” activist says “YES” to that which is right, the “rebel” activist says “NO” to that which is wrong. Direct action, civil disobedience, hunt sabotages, and Animal Liberation Front activities all fall under this category. Activists purposely breaking laws that are unjust, such as hunter harassment laws, or committing acts of civil disobedience to help animals, are effective rebels because they tie the movement’s issues together with First Amendment, freedom of speech, and civil liberties issues. A perfect example of effective rebellion is an Animal Liberation Front raid on a laboratory that frees puppies from its confines and exposes video footage of the researchers torturing the animals. Sure, the activists broke the law, but all of their activities focused directly on saving animals and exposing cruelty. (emphasis added)

This essay was published in The Abolitionist, the quarterly newsletter of a Washington, DC-based animal rights group called Compassion Over Killing. Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle later hired three of that organization's leaders.

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A 1989 Vegetarian Times profile of three key PETA leaders—Ingrid Newkirk, Alex Pacheco, and Kim Stallwood—included a quote from Wayne Pacelle, then Executive Director of the Fund For Animals.

Pacelle lavished praise on PETA's "visionary and professional leadership," noting that "PETA has really done so much in a short time to...promote animal rights."

(A 2004 editorial in Animal People also notes that Pacelle "hypothetically proposed a three-way merger of HSUS, the Fund [For Animals], and PETA as long ago as 1988.")

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In the January 1989 issue of Vegetarian Times, then-HSUS vice president Dr. Michael Fox discussed his leadership of the HSUS-affiliated Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE).

In the interview, Fox admitted to using CRLE to promote meat-free diets through a "covert vegetarian message."

He then goes on to say that such a stealth approach also "is part of the ecumenical approach that the HSUS follows." Fox notes that he himself has gone "from being a meat eater to ... trying to live as close as possible to the principles of ahisma [nonviolence], that is, as a vegetarian."  (The whole interview can be found here.)

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This document is a three-page excerpt (with front matter) from the October-November 1977 newsletter of the National Association for Sound Wildlife Practices (NASWP). The organization, which no longer exists, reported in this issue on a 1974 Washington, DC meeting of 14 wildlife-oriented groups:

In June of 1974 the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center hosted the Symposium on Endangered and Threatened Species in Washington, D.C. During the symposium a group of 14 organizations formed the "Continental Coalition" and developed 26 principles that reflect the viewpoint of this group.

Later that year, the group of 14 (now renamed the "Wildlife and Habitat Coordinating Committee," issued a press release formally endorsing those 26 principles. The Humane Society of the United States was one of these organizations, as was the Fund for Animals (which would later merge with HSUS), and the HSUS-affiliated International Fund for Animal Welfare.

The principles endorsed by these groups included:

• a ban on "the sale of non-domestic animals as pets";
• a ban on "all commercial exploitation ...  of wild animal products";
• strict regulation of "all commercial industries involved in collecting wild (non-domestic) foods (fish, etc.)" and "the development of alternative food sources" including "soy bean fields";
• a ban on "collecting of wild flora and fauna for any commercial use" except medicine and education;
• immediate "moratoria on hunting ... when there is any element of doubt  as to their population in a given area";
• "international monitoring" of "any human intervention" in natural ecosystems; and
• "immediate intervention" to stop corporate development of ecosystems :when there is no evidence to prove that human interference will have no deleterious consequences, i.e. GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT."

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This essay was published in the May 1982 edition of Vegetarian Times. In it, HSUS legal counsel Peter Lovenheim (then a 27-year-old attorney) acknowledges HSUS's formal adoption of the belief that "there is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and the treatment of other animals” at its October 1980 Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Though Lovenheim is credited as the author, he appears to write on behalf of HSUS, stating in one part that "animal protection laws are not the basis for our assertion of 'animal rights.'" (Emphasis added.)

Lovenheim elaborates in this essay on the meaning of  "animal rights." And he enumerates specific "rights" for animals:

In general, all animals have the right to adequate nutrition, to an environment suited to their natural and essential behaviors, and the right not to be subjected to unnecessary physical pain. More specific rights will vary according to species.

Lovenheim also writes that granting "rights" to animals involves giving "equal consideration" to their interests in comparison with those of humans. Ultimately, he draws a distinction between animal rights and simply "being kind to them":

Animals’ requirements are varied, and some are of greater importance than others, but when we recognize them as rights, we have a moral obligation to give them fair consideration, and to deny them only if other rights are overriding.

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This is a one-page essay titled "Animal Retribution?" written by Wayne Pacelle and published in November 1988 by The Animals' Agenda, a now defunct magazine. In it, Pacelle makes clear his disdain for hunting as well as hunters, even calling them "coreligionists" and describing an anecdotal hunting injury as one of "rare instances of justice." Pacelle also refers to ants as though they were people (writing "an ant who..." instead of "an ant that...") while downplaying the threats of large animals by stating that a fly, too, can be dangerous.

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