Category: Animal Rights

Congressional Investigation Targets HSUS Ally, Lobbyist

capitol

This from www.humanewatch.org

It’s been a bad fortnight for the Humane Society of the United States on Capitol Hill. First, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle got caught with his pants on fire in front of a U.S. Senate subcommittee. And on Wednesday, the House of Representatives Committee on Ethics voted unanimously to investigate whether Representative Whitfield (R-KY) violated the law by improperly giving his wife Connie Harriman-Whitfield, a registered HSUS lobbyist, privileged access to contacts on Capitol Hill. The committee will also determine whether “special favors” were dispensed to HSUS or the Humane Society Legislative Fund, HSUS’s official lobbying arm. Read more

Animal Rights

HSUS Still Puts Pensions Ahead of Pets

This from humanewatch.org…

PensionPuppyWhen people find out that Humane Society of the United States isn’t affiliated with local humane societies and doesn’t run any shelters of its own, they usually ask where the $130 million HSUS receives in contributions goes. The answer: Not to local pet shelters. Instead, it funds HSUS’s fat cat CEO, pays for lobbyists and lawyers, or gets socked away at Caribbean hedge funds ($50 million in 2012 and 2013 alone). It also paid millions to settle a federal racketeering lawsuit.

Here’s a metric of just how rotten HSUS is: In each of the past four years, HSUS has funneled more money to its own pension fund than it has contributed to help local pet shelters care for pets – you know, the shelters that actually provide care for the animals HSUS claims to love so much in their commercials. Since 2010, HSUS has dumped nearly $10.7 million into pensions – 3.7 times more than the $2.9 million it has given to local pet shelters. Here’s the most recently available data:

Year Pension contributions Shelter Donations
2010  $2,693,201  $528,676
2011  $2,493,898  $307,708
2012  $2,978,586  $1,028,586
2013  $2,520,588  $1,012,142
Total  $10,686,273  $2,877,112

  It doesn’t take long to see that HSUS is really all about one thing: Helping itself. Read more

Animal Rights

HSUS: Pennies for Pets

PennyShavingsThis from humanewatch.org…

After years of examining how the deceptively named Humane Society of the United States spends the more than $100 million it receives from hardworking Americans ever year, very little surprises us anymore. However, a recently-released “Pennies for Charity” report of telemarketing by professional fundraisers made us do a double take. HSUS actually lost $169,922 annoying Americans with telemarketing calls.

The annual report, which is issued by the New York Attorney General, shows that HSUS spent more than it received in three out of five (60%) of its telemarketing campaigns in 2014. By comparison, only 17% of the total campaigns were in the red for other organizations. In one instance, HSUS paid $69,501 for a campaign that raised $13,403 – a net return of a whopping negative 518%. See the table below for the full results.

Solicitor Gross Net to HSUS % to HSUS
Donor Care Center, Inc.  $232,423  -$65,955 -28%
Donor Services Group, LLC  $966,851  -$282,781 -29%
Fine Line Communications, Ltd.  $258,371  $248,073 96%
InfoCision, Inc.  $41,915  $243 1%
PDR II, Inc.  $13,403  -$69,501 -519%
TOTAL:  $1,512,963  -$169,922 -11%

 

We’ve previously written about two HSUS fundraisers that are listed in the Pennies for Charity report: Donor Services Group and Donor Care Center. Another firm HSUS pays to solicit funds was exposed in a report by Bloomberg Business titled “Charities Deceive Donors Unaware Money Goes to a Telemarketer.”

The Humane Society Legislative Fund, the HSUS’s lobbying arm, didn’t fare much better. It spent $14,000 more on telemarketing than it took in for the year. And HSUS has had similarly poor telemarketing results in Massachusetts and California.

Of course, deceiving donors and then spending their money inefficiently is nothing new for HSUS. It recently received a paltry C-minus grade from Charity Watch for high overhead costs, only gives about 1% of contributions to local pet shelters, and had a donor advisory issued against it.

Here’s the upshot: If HSUS is on the line, hang up.

Animal Rights

HSUS Booted From CPAC

This from humanewatch.org…

logoCPACaltLast week we questioned why the radical Humane Society of the United States would be permitted to exhibit at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). After all, would PETA be welcome at a conference of political conservatives? Probably not. It didn’t take long for HSUS to get the boot.

Once CPAC organizers got wind of HSUS’s anti-agriculture and anti-hunting agenda, HSUS quickly lost its spot at the convention. Plus, when it comes to political spending, 80% of HSUS money spent through its lobbying arm Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF) and corresponding PAC goes to fund Democratic candidates and liberal causes, according to FEC records.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation explains:

The presence there of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) with its anti-hunting agenda made little sense — except that HSUS works to hide its true political nature under the guise of being a funder of animal shelters.

In fact, this group sends next to nothing to local shelters. So when the watchdog group HumaneWatch pointed this out to CPAC management, supported by NSSF, action was taken and HSUS was shown the door.

Read more

Animal Rights

SCI Provides Winning Arguments Against Constitutional Challenge to Three Antelope Rule

Posted by firstforwildlife on March 6, 2015 · Leave a Comment

3 antelope ruling dama gazelleSafari Club International played a pivotal role in a federal district court’s ruling that dismissed a constitutional challenge to the law that exempts the hunting of U.S. captive members of three exotic antelope species from permit and other Endangered Species Act requirements.  Based in great part on SCI’s arguments that the anti-hunting plaintiffs lacked standing to raise their constitutional claims, the D.C. federal district court dismissed the case on March 4, 2015.

Read more

Animal Rights, Hunting, Wildlife

Did Wolves Really Change Rivers?

This from the Boone and Crockett Club…

One year ago, the pro-wolf movement produced a video titled “How Wolves Change Rivers”. The video proclaimed that wolves interaction with elk and deer populations was responsible for a trophic cascade in Yellowstone Park which ultimately improved the ecosystem. The dramatically narrated video went viral, and to date has had nearly 15 million views, undoubtedly altering millions of non-hunters’ perceptions of wolves, while creating fanatical support for unmanaged wolf populations.

A recent study covered by Discover Magazine challenges that claim.

“Changes in the system were perceived as a consequence of wolves,” Middleton explains, but these reintroduced predators actually have a relatively small impact—one that is far outsized by the hoopla surrounding them. The elk population in Yellowstone is at the mercy of a much larger, human-altered ecosystem.”

Discover Magazine’s Article

Video: How Wolves Change Rivers

Boone and Crockett Club’s Stance

Animal Rights, Wildlife

Michigan DNR appeals federal court’s wolf decision

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources today filed an appeal of a December 2014 federal district court ruling that returned wolves in Michigan and Wisconsin to the federal endangered species list and wolves in Minnesota to federal threatened species status. The appeal – filed by the Michigan Attorney General in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – asks the court to uphold the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s December 2011 decision that removed the Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of wolves from the federal endangered species list.

 

“Returning wolf management to wildlife professionals in the state of Michigan is critical to retaining a recovered, healthy, and socially-accepted wolf population in our state,” said DNR Director Keith Creagh.

 

“Michigan residents who live with wolves deserve to have a full range of tools available to sustainably manage that population.” Wolves in Michigan are 15 years past the population recovery goals set by the federal government. The DNR will argue against the federal district court’s ruling that wolves must recover across their historic range – which includes the lower 48 states and Mexico – before Michigan’s wolf population can be removed from the federal endangered species list. In addition, the state will argue against the district court’s conclusion that the USFWS failed to demonstrate that Michigan’s laws and regulations adequately protect the wolf population within Michigan.

 

“Wolves in Michigan and the other western Great Lakes states are fully recovered from endangered species status, which is a great success story,” said DNR Wildlife Division Chief Russ Mason. “Continuing to use the Endangered Species Act to protect a recovered species not only undermines the integrity of the Act, it leaves farmers and others with no immediate recourse when their animals are being attacked and killed by wolves.”

 

Michigan’s wolf population numbers approximately 636 in the state’s Upper Peninsula. With the return to federal protection in December 2014, the DNR lost the authority to use a variety of wolf management methods, including lethal control, to minimize wolf conflict with humans, livestock and dogs. The change in status also suspended state authority that allowed livestock and dog owners to protect their animals from wolf depredation when wolves are in the act of attacking those animals.

 

The federal district court’s December 2014 decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Humane Society of the United States, in which the State of Michigan participated as a defendant-intervener arguing against returning the Great Lakes DPS of wolves to the endangered species list. Michigan joins the USFWS and a number of hunting and conservation organizations in appealing the ruling.

 

For more information about Michigan’s wolf population and management plan, visit www.michigan.gov/wolves.

Animal Rights, Hunting, Wildlife

HSUS Declares Maine Bear Hunting a Target in 2016

Just months after a resounding defeat by Maine voters, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has announced plans to bring yet another ballot issue on bear hunting back to Maine.

On Tuesday, Feb. 24, lawyers for HSUS and the state of Maine were in court to debate the lawsuit brought by HSUS against the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. That suit sought to stop the state’s wildlife experts from explaining to voters the true dangers of HSUS’s bear hunting ban. Despite an overwhelming decision by Maine Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler that sided with the state’s right to provide comments, HSUS continues to pursue a legal challenge.

As part of the discussions about the pending litigation, an attorney for HSUS, Rachel Wertheimer, advised the court that they will again put the question on the 2016 ballot, and will be filing the initial paperwork soon. Read more

Animal Rights, Hunting, Wildlife

HSUS Continues to Waste Taxpayer Dollars in Oklahoma

This from humanewatch.org

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is fighting back against the Humane Society of the United States’ attempt to stonewall his investigation into the group’s deceptive fundraising practices. HSUS sued Pruitt instead of cooperating and providing documents he had requested under the Oklahoma Solicitation of Charitable Contributions Act. AG Pruitt’s response to the lawsuit said HSUS “cites little to no law’ to support its request for an injunction to stop Oklahoma’s investigation.”

In its 22-page response to HSUS’s lawsuit, AG Pruitt’s office stated:

Yet there are serious concerns that HSUS makes only paltry expenditures related to such shelters. Those concerns, along with the representations made, led the office to initiate an investigation of HSUS fund-raising practices and whether the expectations created by those practices have been met. Instead of cooperating with that investigation, the organization has decided to challenge a statutorily authorized civil investigative demand.

Read more

Animal Rights
1 … 12 13 14 15 16 … 58