Sep 21 2010
Tweezerman Creates Another Lather
A few weeks ago we told you about the Tweezerman company's pledge to support the Humane Society of the United States with money from the sale of every “paw print” nail file and pair of tweezers it sells.
But thanks to the vigilance of an eagle-eyed HumaneWatcher, there's more to this story than meets the eye. Tweezerman sells all sorts of grooming products, including this one that's sure to make someone in the HSUS executive suite cringe:
Deluxe Shaving Brush
This high quality shaving brush is made of 100% badger hair, the preferred bristle for creating a rich lather. The densely filled brush head is ideal for holding and distributing lather. Helps soften and raise beard while gently exfoliating the skin in preparation for a close, comfortable shave.
Badger hair? Sounds like a marvelous shave.
Don't the fine folks at Tweezerman know that there are 13 different kinds of badger on the IUCN's "Red List" of Threatened Species? That Wisconsin's emblematic rodent is so difficult to find in the wild that a biology professor in Milwaukee is conducting a state-wide "badger census"? That the disappearing Prairie Dog is robbing badgers of an important food source?
OK, that last one was from an HSUS press statement. (Why are we "saving" the prairie dog, anyway, if not to restore its place in the wildlife food chain?)
But still, you'd think a company that's already diverting its profits into the animal rights movement would be a little more alert. And you'd think that HSUS would promptly turn Tweezerman's bloody money down.
But you'd be wrong, of course.
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Posted on 09/21/2010 at 10:20 AM by the HumaneWatch Team
Fundraising & Money • Pets • Wildlife • (19) CommentsComments
The HSUS “turn money down”???? Are you kidding? Do they do background checks on all those people who give $19 a month as a result of their commercials? Does the Devil turn away souls?
Hmmmm. Much like any other political organization the HSUS will not turn this money down nor take any ethical/moral stand against their shaving brush
Maybe we need to alert PeTA. Would be funny if they got bashed by them - all prompted by the attention they are getting by promoting ‘the other PeTA’!
I will be laughing about the irony of this all day.
Just one issue, and it’s not a small one: Badgers aren’t rodents. They’re mustilids. They’re related to minks, otters, weasels, ferrets and skunks. As you were.
Perhaps the most useful approach to this kind of situation is to alert Tweezerman that HSUS would like to deprive them of their ability to sell their popular shaving brush, which retails for around $15. If we can help companies understand the far-reaching implications of HSUS’ agenda, we can reduce the amount of corporate support available for them.
Has anyone confirmed that the badger hair is not humanely harvested? I understand the issue with using fur for something like this, but the hair of animals of all kinds is harvested for different products. I’m a knitter, and several of the yarns I have are made from natural fibers. I’m sure the people who make the yarn don’t skin the animals before they spin it. It sounds to me that more investigation is needed in this case before people start sicking PETA on them.
A whole thread from “Badger and Blade” (shaving aficionado website) on the fate of the badger.
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4024
They’re not farmed, but hunted and trapped. All parts are put to use. A better fate, I think, for the badger than a life of containment and handling followed by slaughter.
HSUS is partnered with Micheal Vick, so why not badger killers too?
Badgers have a double coat of fur, not hair nor wool. There is really no way to “harvest” their hairs without having the hide. Even if you captured and held badgers to gently brush them each day(yeah I’d LOVE to see HSUS members doing that in fact!), the hairs that come out in shedding would be damaged and few, compared to how many a commercial company would need.
Since badgers are protected here, almost all badger hair comes from CHINA(ahem, animal welfare seems nonexistant according to HSUS and PETA in China, remember??)where badgers are hunted(although they seem numerous in china, also).
Badgers are a crop nuisance in China and would be hunted and killed anyway.
badgers?? we don’t need no stinking badgers… oh wait.. that’s badges… Well, HSUS uses those too. Fake ones….
People will take money, no matter the source. I don’t see anything wrong with taking their “blood money” as long as it goes to support a good cause. Educate the donors on their wrong doing. Maybe they are too busy to their research. Who knows? Who cares? Are you seriously going to look a gift horse in the mouth?
Honestly, HSUS is in it for the money and they would accept money from anyone. I bet if a slaughterhouse or “puppy mill” was to send them a check they would accept it in a heartbeat ...it is not about the animals. It is about the money
Dawn, sweetums, there IS no “wrong-doing”. You’re completely missing the whole “H$U$ are a bunch of greedy, lying hypocrites” point, here.
If UC Davis’s primate research division were to cut the H$U$ a big check, they’d take that, too. “Show me the money” is Wacky Wayne’s second-favorite saying. The H$U$ don’t actually care about animals. They care about money and power. They happily compromise their highly-vaunted “principles” in a heartbeat if they smell a payday, every single time.
The point is NOT which organizations or individuals the HSUS will take money from—because we all know that the only qualification is that they can fog a mirror—the point is how can we convince these companies to stop giving money to HSUS?
Again, I think this could be a great opportunity to show Tweezerman that the HSUS agenda might soon deprive them of their ability to sell badger brushes and otherwise interfere in their right to commerce and fair trade.
I think it would be fun if everyone who read this would write tweezerman and tell them their mistake of donating to the hsus, teach them the true agenda of a.r. groups.Trapping season is just around the corner and there is an over abundence of badgers around here, i think i’ll catch me a few.
Badgers are Mustelids, not Rodents.
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Animal rights groups have long adhered to the philosophy, Do as I say, not as I do…