HSUS Knows There’s a Pet Shelter Problem (But Would Rather Harass Farmers)

We’re back in the news, this time in North Platte, Neb. for revealing that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) donates less than 1 percent of its budget to support pet sheltering.  Instead, the $200 million national lobby group prefers to pressure farmers in the Cornhusker State, bearing the specter of a ballot initiative aimed at putting Old MacDonald out of business.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, animal shelters are struggling. A Reuters reporter asked HSUS for comment, and its spokeswoman said that shelters face increasing pressure as more people in financial difficulty surrender their pets. The HSUS analyst estimated that between three and four million shelter animals are killed each year in the United States, and noted that some shelters “have found themselves euthanizing a higher number of animals.”

We’ve heard talk about pet euthanasia before. Oh, that’s right: It features prominently in HSUS’s advertising. That, combined with fundraising literature asserting that donations to HSUS "[help] the HSUS assist local shelters,” might explain why 71 percent of Americans wrongly believe that HSUS is a national umbrella group for pet shelters.

Commentators are already beginning to suggest that HSUS is “less than honest” in its dealings with farm groups. Why limit it to farmers? We think that they’ve taken advantage of the American people’s humane confusion for a while, too. The sooner that HSUS admits its radical PETA agenda and stops its misleading fundraising, the better.