Animal Welfare Fraud" (Distributed by Trans-Species Unlimited at the 1988 Annual Conference of HSUS) "H.S.U.S
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CONTENTS 1) EVOLUTION OF HSUS From Animal Welfare to Animal Rights Friction With Grass-Roots Groups HSUS and the International Arena/Environmentalism Sustainable Use/Animals in Peril HSUS and Education NAHEE Excluding the "Opposition" California's Environmental Education Using Local Humane Societies Center for Respect of Life and Environment HSUS and Religion 2) FINANCIAL Executives Executive salaries "Obscene Salary Watch" Financial dealings/irregularities Where the money goes Abuse of tax-exempt status The Jack Anderson affair Wills's subsidised wedding? Paul Irwin the banker Kickbacks from direct mail producers? 3) BREAKING STORIES Dog Bite Prevention Week Jailbird director "Sonny" Bloch Washington D.C. Animal Contract Iditarod in Danger Free Willy! Criminal investigation in California 4) PERSONALITY PROFILES Bloch, H.I. "Sonny" Deday LaRene, Nathaniel C. Forkan, Patricia Fox, Michael Grandy, John W. Hoyt, John A. Irwin, Paul G. LaBudde, Sam HUMANEWATCH.ORG Lieberman, Susan Pacelle, Wayne Stephens, Martin Telecky, Teresa Wills, David 5) PROGRAMS/ACTIVITIES 6) AWARD PROGRAMS 7) DOCUMENTS "Easy Targets — Did HSUS expose zoo links to canned hunts or just play to the grandstand?" (Animal People, October 1994) "HSUS Usurps AHA Disaster Relief Role" (Animal People, May 1994) "The Contract that Never Was" (International Harpoon, May 1994) "Humane Society of the U.S. Settles Affairs Without a Wills" (Animal People, December 1995) "HSUS Isn't Talking" (Animal People, November 1995) "A Whale of a Tale from Inside HSUS" (Animal People, October 1995) "One Nonprofit's Woes" (U.S. News & World Report, October 2, 1995.) "Is it time for Helen Jones of ISAR to retire?" (Animal People, October 1995.) "What's Best for Willy?" (Animal People, September 1995) "Triple Trouble for Humane Society of US" (Animal People, September 1995) "HSUS Raids the Fund for Animals" (Animal People, May 1994) "Zimbabwe: Driving Wildlife to Extinction — An Investigative Report on the Crisis Facing Elephants and Rhinoceros in Zimbabwe" (HSUS/HSI, Oct. 7, 1993) "Zimbabwe: At the Leading Edge of Conservation" (by the Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management of Zimbabwe, Nov. 20, 1993) "Dog Bite Prevention Campaign Pairs Post Office with Animal Rights Organization" (NAIA News, July-August 1995) "The Trojan Horse of Animal Protectionism: The Battle Over Curriculum" (CFAAR Newsletter, March 1994) "Humane Society's Perfect World" (Anchorage Daily News, Dec. 19, 1992) "A Discussion — Rights for Animals" (HSUS publication, 1990) "Questions on Humane Society Finances" (by Jack Anderson and Dale van Atta, Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1991) "Where Charity Begins at the Top" (by Jack Anderson and Joseph Spear, Washington Post, Oct. 13, 1988) "'Excessive' Pay at Humane Society" (by Jack Anderson and Joseph Spear, Washington Post, Sept. 8, 1988) "Dubious Deals in the Humane Society" (by Jack Anderson and Dale van Atta, Washington Post, Sept. 7, 1988) "What You Should Know About: Animal Welfare Fraud" (distributed by Trans-Species Unlimited at the 1988 annual conference of HSUS) "H.S.U.S. Annual Conference — Supplementary Information Packet" (distributed by Coalition Against Animal Welfare Fraud at the 1988 annual conference of HSUS) 8) ORGANISATION 9) MEMORABLE QUOTES 10) ON-LINE ACCESS TO HSUS 11) BIBLIOGRAPHY 1) EVOLUTION OF HSUS In 1954, a radical splinter group separated from the American Humane Association and set up the National Humane Society. Among them were Cleveland Amory, who would later leave to form the radical anti-hunting organisation Fund for Animals, and Helen Jones, currently president of the International Society for Animal Rights and reportedly an eccentric, alcoholic, pet-hoarder (see "Is It Time for Helen Jones of ISAR to Retire?"). This new organisation would later be renamed the Humane Society of the United States. Documentation on the first 25 years of HSUS's existence, other than that produced by the organisation itself, is scant, but it indicates policy was fairly well focused on animal welfare issues. However, HSUS did not, and never has run an animal shelter, the function that is most commonly associated with a "humane" society. Indeed, "HSUS policy since it was founded in 1954 has been to avoid doing hands-on animal care" (Animal People, November 1995), although it recently came close to landing the animal control contract in Washington D.C. (see "Washington D.C. Animal Contract"). In the last 15 years, HSUS has experienced phenomenal growth in its constituency, causing one commentator to refer to it recently as "the General Motors of the animal protection industry." In 1970, when John Hoyt took over the presidency, HSUS had just 30,000 constituents and an annual budget of about $500,000, and ten years later there were still just 50,000 constituents. But by 1990 this figure had grown to 1.3 million, and today stands at 2.5 million, making HSUS one of the largest animal welfare/rights organisations in the U.S. With a budget in 1994 of $23,265,940, it ranked second behind the North Shore Animal League ($31 million). To keep this in perspective, however, Greenpeace International had a budget in the same year of $145 million. From Animal Welfare to Animal Rights At its 1980 national membership conference in San Francisco, a vote was taken that would profoundly shift the policy direction of HSUS. It was formally resolved that the HSUS would "pursue on all fronts ... the clear articulation and establishment of the rights of all animals ... within the full range of American life and culture." The literature resulting from that meeting also contained the statement that " there is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and other animals ..." However, with the rise in violence and controversy in the 1980s associated with animal rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA) and the unstructured Animal Liberation Front, HSUS strove to distance itself in the public's mind from other groups and establish for itself a "moderate" image as an "animal protection" organisation. (To an extent, this was inevitable: many of the staff of HSUS, including its two top officers [John Hoyt and Paul Irwin] are meat-eaters, while the leadership of the animal rights movement in general is vegetarian or vegan. [Other notable exceptions are Fund for Animals and the National Anti-Vivisection Society; Vegetarian Times, February, 1995.]) As a consequence, the HSUS has employed caution in advertising its true philosophy of animal rights. A 1990 fundraising flyer entitled "A Discussion — Rights for Animals" (see "Documents") begins: "The Humane Society of the United States has long been in the forefront of advocating the recognition of rights of and for animals," and includes such radical proposals as providing animals with access to courts. Nonetheless, the intent of this diatribe is to intellectualize HSUS's stance on animal rights in such a way as it can dissociate itself from the mainstream animal rights movement. "In the past ten years, the term 'animal rights' has been overused, and, in the process, the concept has become muddled," it states. "... Overuse and careless use has led not only to confusion and imprecision but also to a loss of perspective as to how much work lies ahead before animals acquire rights in a practical and legal sense." Juxtaposed with this shyness, overt animal rightists have enjoyed growing prominence in HSUS over the last decade, even though the most oft-cited example, vice-president for Bioethics and Farm Animal Protection Michael Fox, has been somewhat sidelined when it comes to determining policy. (Fox was recently appointed head of the HSUS affiliate the Center for Respect of Life and Environment, to enable him to promote animal rights more vigorously than is acceptable under the banner of HSUS itself.) Others with influence within HSUS proper include vice-presidents Patricia Forkan and Wayne Pacelle, and a gaggle of other staffers recruited from the radical animal rights group Fund for Animals, prompting FFA founder Cleveland Amory to remark: "They ought to pay us for training their staff for them. They know we can't get into a bidding war when they offer our people two and three times the salary they're making here" (Animal People, May 1994). HSUS staffer Virginia Bollinger was formerly an investigator for the radical People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), while the recently fired vice-president David Wills is married to the former wife of Alex Pacheco, PETA's president. And while HSUS president Paul Irwin states unequivocally that "On the issue of animal research, we seek reform, not abolition" (American Society for Microbiology Newsletter, Feb., 1993), HSUS's official spokesman on animal research, Martin Stephens, personally espouses abolition (see "Personality Profiles"). Irwin argues in the same newsletter that, "Far from being taken over by anyone, radical or otherwise, HSUS has enjoyed a continuity in leadership for the last 20 years." But as they say, people make policy. Most telling, however, is that the rhetoric of "animal protection" which HSUS employs when addressing its wider constituency through various publications, changes when the audience is more select. Speaking at the 1990 HSUS annual meeting, then- president Hoyt said: "In the early stages of the advent of the philosophy of animal rights, it appeared that established groups such as the HSUS and newly emerging groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals could make common cause on most issues mutually supporting each other's actions and endeavors. ... until, sadly, it became apparent to us and others that the motives and ambitions of the leaders of this endeavor were seriously flawed. ... there has evolved over the past few years a fairly radical difference in the tactics employed by various groups in seeking to achieve their goals. ... Those utilized by some animal rights groups tend to be confrontational and demonstrative, sometimes resulting in the destruction of property, personal intimidation, and, on rare occasions, violence.