“Change Agenda” Report Card: HSUS’s Ambitions Flounder

Our national mood was quite different after the 2008 elections—different enough, in fact, that HSUS confidently issued a 100-point “Change Agenda for Animals” to challenge the incoming White House and Congress to do its bidding.

One year later, HSUS issued the Obama Administration a "B-minus" grade; (which is far better than the "D" grade HSUS itself was recently awarded by a respected charity watchdog). The B-minus was widely seen as a practical nod to the difficulties of getting anything approved by the proverbial sausage factory (sorry, Wayne) that is the U.S. Congress. 

Two years in, the sun is setting on the 111th Congress, and on the first half of President Obama's first term. HSUS has spent millions of dollars lobbying for its agenda. How did it do?

Green Is the New (Old?) Pacelle

Let’s take a walk back to the ’80s. No, mullets and M.C. Hammer parachute pants aren't coming back into style. We're going to take a look at Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle’s entry into animal-rights politics 23 years ago.

In 1987, Pacelle was fresh out of college and quite the busy bee in the animal rights world. In September of that year he joined the aggressive Animals’ Agenda magazine as an Associate Editor. Two months later, he ran for Alderman in New Haven, Connecticut. (He lost.)

What’s interesting, though is that Pacelle ran as a member of the Green Party. (We’ve written before—see here, here, here, and here—about the longstanding alliance between the environmental and animal rights movements, so that’s no surprise.)

And what the Greens stood for in the late ’80s provides a unique window into what Pacelle hoped to gain—and still does—by becoming a political animal.

In July 1987 when Green Party activists met in Amherst, Masachussets to discuss a national party platform, a group of animal “liberationists” offered a 12-point plan called “Ethical Treatment of Animals.” 

HSUS and Animal Rights: A 30-Year Marriage

Google may eventually take over the universe, but for now we're okay with that because the Google Books service is an exceptionally cool research tool. We're constantly finding old material we didn't know existed, just because it's suddenly text-searchable.

Here’s one gem: a 1981 statement from HSUS detailing why it officially supports pursuing rights for animals.

The excerpt on the right gets to the meat of matter. It’s from the May 1982 issue of Vegetarian Times and it details HSUS’s explicit endorsement in 1980 of the animal rights position:

... there is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and the treatment of other animals.

We don't think HSUS has ever repealed this policy statement; if we're wrong, we feel confident the group's lawyers will let us know.

HSUS Isn’t a Big Fan of Shamu

The horribly tragic death of an animal trainer at Sea World in Florida has seemingly brought every "Free Willy" activist out of the woodwork today. Including Dr. Naomi Rose, HSUS's resident marine mammal scientist.

Here's Naomi, in an HSUS press release:

Tillikum, the SeaWorld orca, has now been involved in the deaths of three people. Using these animals in entertainment is not good for animals or people. Sadly, we've seen evidence of that again today. Whales and dolphins are ... unsuited to permanent confinement, often exhibiting neurotic behaviors in these settings. Capture methods are also inhumane, and often not adequately managed or overseen."

On the other side of the debate is ... well, pretty much everyone who goes to Sea World, the veterinarians who work there, and parents everywhere who want their kids to see what killer whales look like without paying for a pleasure cruise to the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve in British Columbia (to name one of very few places you could go...)