HumaneWatch

What did gunman James Lee accomplish yesterday when he took hostages and made his outlandish demands at the Discovery Channel headquarters? (Other than making An Inconvenient Truth seem like a re-write of The Turner Diaries…)

Not much.

It’s fair to assume that no one of sound mind will follow wherever Lee thought he was leading. But he did at least prove that it’s possible to take love of animals and the environment too far. Way too far.

The Humane Society of the United States published a new video online this week, showing HSUS vice president John Grandy and a gaggle of other HSUS staffers emptying a forest of all its animals. On camera (natch), they’re all busily moving wildlife—frogs, rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, and the like—from a patch of woods near HSUS’s Maryland office building to another area. Why? Because a new freeway interchange will soon be built there.

And good for them, we suppose. There’s something admirable about saving Kermit and Thumper from a future date with the bulldozer. But it does raise an interesting question: If HSUS cares enough about every last hop-toad, garter snake, and chipmunk to re-home countless woodland critters, how come the animals’ brothers and sisters on U.S. soybean and broccoli farms don’t rate the same sort of sympathy?

For a variety of reasons, vegans (including those who run HSUS) hate the idea of killing animals for food. The biggest reason, though, is because they’ve convinced themselves it’s unnecessary—that the human race can survive nicely without imposing any casualties on the animal kingdom. This is why HSUS big-shots like Wayne Pacelle, Michael Greger, and Paul Shapiro will never dine on veal scaloppini: Even if the veal calves in question were raised at the Ritz-Carlton, vegan evangelists seem to think a diet of lentils and tofu is “kinder.”

Nonsense.

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.

The United Nations reports that globally, the human race catches (and kills) about 750,000 metric tons of sharks and other closely related ocean species every year. And only a tiny fraction of that activity happens in the United States. So why is the Humane Society of the U.S. carping about a recreational shark-fishing tournament in Massachusetts that only netted 14 of Jaws's relatives last year?

Here’s what the Cape Cod Times writes this morning about the 24th annual Monster Shark Tournament, which kicks off tomorrow in the coastal town of Oak Bluffs:

The tournament rules allow fishermen to capture only mako, thresher and porbeagle sharks. Because fishermen are required to release all mako sharks weighing less than 200 pounds and all porbeagle and thresher sharks below 250 pounds, each boat gets a chart to estimate each shark’s weight based on its length …

Last year, with all the “brouhaha,” 130 vessels fishing for two days brought 14 sharks home, [tournament organizer Steven] James said. “Does that sound like a blood bath in Oak Bluffs?”

He added that fishermen tag dozens of sharks during the event, making the event invaluable to scientists who also collect biological data from the carcasses.

Could it be that HSUS is actually standing in the way of shark conservation work? Color us shocked—shocked!

Today the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that it's refusing to act on Endangered Species Act petitions filed in January by the Humane Society of the United States and another activist group. HSUS had asked the government to add the porbeagle shark to its list of species that are off-limits to fishermen. Here's the result in a nutshell (emphasis added):

In January 2010, the Wild Earth Guardians and the Humane Society of the United States petitioned NOAA to list the porbeagle shark as an endangered species under the ESA. At that time, the agency began a 90-day review, but found that neither petition presented sufficient scientific information indicating that listing the species under the ESA may be warranted.

Also, NOAA found that the information in the petitions and in its files indicates that populations of porbeagle shark are stable or increasing globally, and that recreational and commercial fishing protections for the shark are increasing.

That much is true. The porbeagle shark did get some new international protections this year, in the form of an "Appendix II" listing by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). But even CITES doesn't say the porbeagle is endangered. Appendix II, according to the international conservation group, "lists species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but that may become so unless trade is closely controlled."

HSUS's experts should know all this. (Humane Society International leaders jetted to Doha, Qatar in March to lobby CITES. They were there.)

Given that HSUS has been trying to get shark-fishing tournaments banned since 2005, this aquatic jumping of the gun shouldn't surprise anyone. But the details of NOAA's report in today's Federal Register should leave the animal rights group absolutely red-faced.

Update: This post was, in my own judgment, a bit hasty. I've since reconsidered much of it, given that the actual text of the "Buckeye Compromise" isn't entirely consistent with what was presented at Wednesday's press conference. It turns out my enthusiasm was, in many ways, premature.

The next time I buy a house or consider a job offer, I want Ohio Farm Bureau vice president Jack Fisher as my negotiator. (That's him above, at left.)

A little over an hour ago, Fisher stood with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (center) and Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle (the guy looking displeased) for a press conference, announcing that HSUS will be pulling out of Ohio. Call it a case of campaignus interruptus.

What the heck happened? Did the Farm Bureau fold like a tent and concede victory to HSUS, as other states’ farmers have done? (I’m talkin’ to you, Colorado and Michigan…)

Nope. Despite a self-congratulatory press release from HSUS, the group got practically nothing that it wanted from Ohio’s farmers. Instead, Pacelle has agreed to abandon HSUS’s whole “Ohioans for Humane Farms” front group in exchange for the equivalent of $24 in blue beads.

Let’s take a look at what each side in the HSUS-versus-Buckeye-farmers battle got. It’s not pretty.http://www.journal-news.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/ohiopolitics/entries/2010/06/30/kasich_has_narrow_lead_in_new.html

Two weeks ago we gave you a recap of HSUS’s lack of action following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Have things picked up since then? Not exactly.

On June 10 HSUS announced that it had assembled a seven-person assessment team to go down to the Gulf and look at the oil spill’s impact on wildlife. One of the members of that team was Ed Clark, head of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. And he kept a day-by-day journal of his journey on this “interdisciplinary damage assessment mission” which was “organized and hosted by” HSUS.

Think HSUS's task force jumped right onto the beaches and got their hands dirty cleaning animals? Not quite. Here’s a summary of Clark’s entries: