Washing “Humane” Confusion Out to Sea

UPDATE (5-13-11): Atlantic Publishing has confirmed that it does not currently contribute to HSUS, but it does give generously to community-based animal shelters, rescue groups, and animal parks. Atlantic has also created a new donation page emphasizing that its donations go to local animal shelters. The publisher says this new page will appear in all new books and reprints. Thanks to Atlantic, and to all you HumaneWatchers who took action.

One of the themes that keeps coming back to HumaneWatch is that the Humane Society of the United States isn’t what most Americans think it is. According to national opinion polling we commissioned, most Americans think HSUS is a pet shelter umbrella group, that it gives most of its money to groups that care for dogs and cats, and that HSUS is affiliated with their local humane society pet shelter. None of these things is true.

In short, a lot of educating needs to be done so that all Americans are caught up to speed on America’s richest, and perhaps most deceptive, animal rights group. Here’s a new opportunity for HumaneWatch readers (that’s you) to do just that.

A recent message on the “petlaw” listserv (hosted by Yahoo!) from Carlotta Cooper, author of the upcoming book The Complete Guide to Raising Pigs, caught our eye. Cooper writes:

I’ve been working on a book about pigs for a few months.  I sent the last revised version of the manuscript to the editor a couple of months ago and all was well … So, today I get a box of books delivered to my door and I'm completely delighted with them … until I open the book up and right among the front pages is a full-page ad for HSUS!  Not only that, but the publisher and his wife are pledging a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of the book to HSUS.  This is just terrible but I really don't have any control over it, except to tell people don't buy the book.

It’s ironic that a book about raising pigs would feature an advertisement for an animal rights group that wants to completely eliminate the raising of animals for food.

Maybe it’s time to clue in Atlantic Publishing.

What’s an Animal Care Expo without Any Animal Care?

Once each year the Humane Society of the United States holds an Animal Care Expo at a fancy resort—what it calls “the premier educational and networking conference for animal care professionals and volunteers.” The 2011 event took place last week in Florida, at Disney’s Coronado Spring Resort.

The exhibit booths and educational workshops comprise (unfortunately) one of the very few ways that HSUS interacts with hands-on pet shelters, but it’s a start.

Still, it’s aggravating to know that the Expo is a money-making enterprise for the already-wealthy HSUS. Some of the event’s promised seminar topics seem tailor-made for HSUS revenue generation. For instance:

• “Why You NEED to Have Retail at Your Shelter” (because it will help you earn the money we won’t give you…)
• “Managing and Leading Change” (which you can accomplish by joining our expensive National Federation of Humane Societies trade association…)
• “Transforming Your Shelter Step-by-Step” (after you pay us $25,000 to tell you what’s wrong…)

You get the idea. Admission to the conference can cost up to $250. HSUS cleared more than $222,000 in profits from its 2009 Animal Care Expo. And last week’s event included everything from a Wayne Pacelle book signing to a lecture on “Female Leadership in Animal Protection.” (The title? “Queen Bees.”) About the only thing it lacked was … well, actual animals.

HSUS’s chosen Disney resort allows only seeing-eye dogs and other service animals. “All other animals must be boarded.” And although convention-goers could listen to a lecture about “executing wildly successful mega-adoption events,” no one was actually demonstrating one.

It doesn’t have to be this way. One competing Pet Expo held a few weeks earlier—3,500 miles away—just might be a better model.

Happy Retirement, Bob!

An HSUS insider informs us that Robert Roop, the long-time Humane Society of the United States Vice President for Humane Resources—and President of the quasi-official “Humane Society University”—has finally succumbed to "compassion fatigue." He left his post at the end of 2010.

Indeed, the “University” no longer lists Roop as its president [ see before & after ], and HSUS’s website no longer includes him in its online list of “leaders.”

We first discussed Roop in the context of wondering how a man whose own Ph.D. came from a diploma mill wound up as President of a degree-granting institution (however unaccredited those “degrees” may be).

In any event, we’ve updated Roop’s HumaneWatch biography to reflect his retirement. If you’re aware of any other employment changes at HSUS among key personnel—hirings, firings, retirements, resignations, or whatever—please let us know so we can keep HumaneWatch current.

Good luck in retirement, Bob. And don't spend all your HSUS pension funds in one place. 

Back 2 Skewl with Humane Society U.

UPDATE: For those of you who have asked, it's our understanding that the Humane Society of the United States's "Articles of Incorporation" still forbid the group from operating a private school. (If this has changed, we hope HSUS will let us know.)

Wayne Pacelle blogged last Thursday about Humane Society University (HSU), HSUS’s “higher education” arm. Although it claims to have been founded in 1999, HSU just awarded its first two graduate certificates last week, following its “one year anniversary.”

And things get stranger from there.

The District of Columbia licenses HSU to grant degrees, but HSU warns that its course "credits may not be accepted by other institutions of higher learning—accredited ones, that is. HSU says it’s “seeking” accreditation from one source, but it doesn’t have any at present.

HSU only began operating in the District of Columbia a few years ago, but HSUS in-house historian Bernard Unti’s curriculum vitae says he was teaching at the institution in 2004. Back then, it “partnered” with Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

HSUS’s “Animal Sheltering” website claims the Duquesne partnership still exists. But curiously, HSU’s own website stopped mentioning it in 2007. And at present, Duquesne University doesn’t mention any involvement from HSU (or HSUS) in its longstanding Humane Leadership Major track.

But no matter. Humane Society University is up and running. And the school's President—long-time HSUS vice president Robert G. Roop—might be the ideal guy to run a quasi-official, kinda-sorta “university” with no legitimate accreditation.

Why? His own Ph.D came from one.

Roop received his Human Resource Management doctorate from Bircham International University, a “diploma mill.” His doctoral thesis was a “Strategic plan of the humane society of the U.S.A.”

This ought to be interesting.

UnKIND Kiddie Propaganda

There's nothing new about animal rights groups targeting children. PETA constantly hands out gory comic books to kids titled “Your Mommy Kills Animals.” (And that's just for starters.) HSUS, with more of a soft-sell marketing style, puts out a little newsletter once each month during the school year called KIND News. This turns up in classrooms all across the country.

By our estimation, KIND News is a more insidious publication than anything PETA produces. PETA’s “comic books” don’t pass any parental smell-test, but HSUS's version of kiddie propaganda is cleverly set up to seem perfectly innocuous.

Last month's edition is a great example. The "Jr. Edition" of KIND News for April (distributed to third- and fourth-grade students) includes an article trashing livestock agriculture, in which HSUS tells its young readers to write to their Congressman, the USDA, and the EPA.

In other words, HSUS is recruiting unwitting kids to lobby for them, without parental consent or notice.

One school district in Nebraska has e-mailed its teachers, asking them to halt distribution of this HSUS publication. It's about time.