8.5 Million New HumaneWatchers?

If you’re among syndicated radio host Mark Levin’s 8.5 million listeners, you probably heard us on his show last night. Levin, an animal lover and author of the bestselling Rescuing Sprite, invited our executive director on the air to discuss the shocking revelations of another of our websites, PetaKillsAnimals.com. (Background: PETA kills thousands of the adoptable animals in its care every year.) But as we told Levin’s audience, there’s an even worse situation with another animal “charity”: HSUS.

There’s another organization out there that in some ways is actually guilty of a bigger scam, and that’s the Humane Society of the United States. People think that the Humane Society of the United States is connected to animal shelters, and they are not. And they are collecting over $100 million every year. These are people that put more money into their executive pension plan, from the donations that are coming in—people think that money’s going to shelters—they put more money into their executive pension plan than they put into shelters. If you go to HumaneWatch.org, you will see an even bigger scam than PETA.

Our message resonated so strongly with one Levin listener—a 20-year member of HSUS—that she called in at the end of the show to share her shock at learning the truth. Here’s the audio:

The next time a paid HSUS shill claims that all the organization’s members know what it’s really about, point them to this. If someone who has been donating to HSUS for two decades is shocked to learn that HSUS spends more on its pensions than on pet-shelter grants, it’s beyond debate that HSUS has duped the general public.

You can listen to the full show here (our segment begins at time index 01:30:00.). Levin says it’s best to give to your local humane society. We couldn’t agree more.

The Real “Bond”

With the news this morning that the Pennsylvania SPCA conducted raids to bust up what officials called “the largest dogfighting ring they’ve ever seen” in Philadelphia, it’s worth asking once again: Has Michael Vick’s return to the NFL as the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback made dogfighting “cool” in the City of Brotherly Love?

Evidence points to “yes.” Animal fighting investigations tripled in 2009, the year Vick signed with the Eagles, compared with 2008. Most of these cases were in Philadelphia, and most were dogfighting-related.

To whatever extent Michael Vick’s post-prison image rehab is responsible, none of it would have been possible without the Humane Society of the United States and its CEO Wayne Pacelle. HSUS sent Vick on a speaking tour to criticize dogfighting after receiving a $50,000 grant from the Eagles.

Pacelle’s advocacy for Vick even led him to claim in December that the felon "would do a good job as a pet owner.”

Now, with the release of his first book (The Bond), Pacelle justifies mending Vick’s image. On Saturday he told NPR: “There is a utility for the animal protection cause in having him out there speaking.”

HSUS released a pair of video “trailers” for The Bond, which explores Pacelle’s view of the bond between humans and animals. But this fanfare and self-promotion—and the book itself—may have missed the real Bond. The one between Wayne Pacelle and Michael Vick.

So we’ve made our own video trailer. Unlike Pacelle’s 448-page tome, it cuts right to the chase.

Enjoy, and be sure to share!

This Movie Will Not Win a Genesis Award

Many Americans are still confused about what the Humane Society of the United States is. (To review, HSUS is an animal rights group, not a pet-shelter organization.) And one way to get that message front-and-center is to put a video on YouTube.

That’s just what the Missouri Farmers Care coalition did late last week. The group's new 2-minute video is quickly making the rounds, laying bare many of the basic facts about HSUS—including its heavy spending on fundraising, its anti-agriculture philosophy, and its shocking habit of snubbing pet shelters.

We see HSUS donors becoming former HSUS donors nearly every day, and it’s often due to the grassroots efforts of HumaneWatch readers. Enjoy the movie, and be sure to share it with your friends.

HSUS Plays Chicken with Whole Foods

Meet Miyun Park. She’s a former Vice President for Farm Animal Welfare at the Humane Society of the United States. In 2009, Park’s résumé landed her a job as Executive Director of the Global Animal Partnership (GAP), the organization administering a new 5-tier animal-welfare rating system recently unveiled by Whole Foods Market. (To see GAP’s tax returns, click here.)

To judge from glowing media reports of the new meat, dairy, and egg labeling scheme, Miyun Park sits at the nexus of the animal-welfare mainstream and America’s foodie elites. But Park and GAP aren’t exactly what they seem.

GAP is beginning to show signs of a legitimate vegan takeover, led by Park—who, as the farm-animal VP at HSUS, was crystal clear about her desire to eliminate as much livestock farming as she could.

More on that after the jump.

Dharma Passes the Hat

On December 7 of last year, “Dharma and Greg” co-star Jenna Elfman “tweeted” a photo taken after she taped a new "give $19 a month" TV ad for the Humane Society of the United States. Elfman made a radio PSA for HSUS in 2001 and lent an image of her lips to an HSUS-branded postage stamp in 2008, but this was her first on-camera work for the animal rights organization. It reportedly began airing late last week.

Last night the video production company that shot this fundraising ad posted a press release about it, but the release was removed early this morning. (Here’s Google’s cache, and our screen-grab for posterity.) In addition to the Jenna Elfman ad, the release also linked to videos of two more spots that may or may not be running nationally: one narrated by Wayne Pacelle, and another showcasing three children. (Note: We can’t control how long these movie files will be available for viewing.)

The Jenna Elfman fundraising ad is the most interesting of three to us. Not because it’s fronted by an actress, but because we counted 44 live animals in this ad, and all but two are dogs and cats:

More after the jump.

Take It From a Veterinarian

Dr. Roger Welton is a Florida veterinarian and author of Canine and Feline 101. He also founded Web-DVM, an innovative veterinary advice website supplemented by a video blog that has been pumping out pet-doc advice since 2007.

On Saturday Dr. Welton fired up his video camera to describe a “humane conflict” about the Humane Society of the United States that’s beginning to percolate into the public consciousness.

“Even local animal shelters and humane groups,” he notes, “are often left wondering about the motives of HSUS. Some small shelters have been overwhelmed with animals after well-publicized raids by the HSUS and feel that the Humane Society should offer more financial support.”

Dr. Welton is worth watching—not because he has clearly been reading HumaneWatch, but because he understands the problem. 

Click here for a transcript and to see more video presentations from this knowledgeable doc.

Animal Abuse Registries: An HSUS Flip-Flop?

The idea of an animal abuse registry is simple but controversial. Advocates for the concept note that Americans have the right to know if they’re living down the street from a convicted rapist or child pornographer—so they should also have access to information about neighbors who have been convicted of certain animal-cruelty crimes (especially felonies).

Suffolk County, NY (on Long Island) launched the first such registry in November:

"We know there is a very strong correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence," said Suffolk County legislator Jon Cooper, the bill's sponsor. "Almost every serial killer starts out by torturing animals, so in a strange sense we could end up protecting the lives of people."

The online list will be open to the public, so that pet owners or the merely curious can find out whether someone living near them is on it. Some animal abusers have been known to steal their neighbors' pets.

Cooper is also pushing legislation that would bar anyone on the registry from buying or adopting a pet from a shelter, pet shop or breeder.

The Humane Society of the United States supported a similar Tennessee bill in 2008. HSUS Tennessee state director (read: lobbyist) LeighAnn McCollum told reporters: “If it’s successful in Tennessee,we’d certainly like to model other states’ legislation after it … We know that harming an animal is often the first step toward harming a human.” (The bill ultimately died, but the state Senate passed it.)

HSUS also endorsed similar California legislation in February 2010. But ten months later, in December, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle did a complete one-eighty, arguing against animal abuse registries. What happened?

This is one of those things that only makes sense in hindsight.