Why is our Congress passing taxpayers’ money-wasting, ‘feel good”, animal rights bills?
Blogger News Editorial By Zuzana Kukol
Las Vegas, NV, August 24, 2007—With elections, family holidays and spirit of
giving season approaching, we can expect lots of solicitations from various
politicians and charities. One of them will be ‘The Humane Society of the
United States”, HSUS.
HSUS is an animal rights (AR) group that many confuse with local ‘Humane
society’ shelters; however, Humane Society of United States is not
affiliated with any of them. They are a powerful well funded AR group, who
instead of helping shelters and animals directly, works hard on eventually
removing pets from our homes, meat from our tables, leather goods from our
closets and animals from zoos and circuses. Not only doesn’t HSUS help
struggling shelters, they charge them between $4,000 and $20,000 consulting
fee. What is especially disconcerting that HSUS, a group many expect to care
about animal welfare is making money selling
animal euthanasia manuals.
HSUS and Animal Liberation Front Connection
One of HSUS’s supposed ‘subject experts’ on animal cruelty is John Paul “JP”
Goodwin, better known for his ties to the
Animal Liberation Front, ALF, which FBI
considers to be a terrorist group.
In his February 12, 2002 Congressional Testimony James F. Jarboe, Domestic
Terrorism Section Chief, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, said: “During the
past several years, special interest extremism, as characterized by the
Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), has
emerged as a
serious terrorist threat.”
When Bernard Unti, senior policy advisor and special assistant to the
president of HSUS, was asked by animal owners to explain
Goodwin’s appointment to the H$U$ ‘expert panel’, he replied:
“I am sure that some of you would prefer to cast him forever in a negative
light but it doesn’t work, as his turnaround reflects the success of the
conventional approaches to advancing social change. We want to persuade
those who used errant tactics in the past to adopt better and legal
approaches. You too should celebrate this instead of forever harping on a
youthful enthusiasm that was taking someone in the wrong direction.”
Well, does that mean that if a child care owner hires a pedophile to watch
the kids and parents complain, the child care’s answer should be not to
worry, since the pedophile did it as a part of his ‘youthful sexual
experimentation to find his true identity’?
Hurricane Katrina Donations
To the general public, HSUS gained a nationwide attention with their
questionable tactics of raising money from pet lovers for the animals
displaced during hurricane Katrina; the Louisiana Attorney General is
looking into
what really happened with 32 million HSUS raised.
However, this is not the first time HSUS used questionable tactics to get
donations from donors who intended to help living breathing animals, only to
use the donations to push for ‘feel good’ legislation that did absolutely
nothing for the animals, or worse, in the long run, not to mention wasting
tax payers’ money and Congressional time and resources.
Internet Hunting
A great example of HSUS’s questionable tactics of soliciting donations for
non existent problems is to ban so called Internet hunting on federal and
state levels. On their website, HSUS claims:
“We estimate that there are more than 3,000 canned hunting operations in at
least 25 states nationwide, and by having the ability to use the Internet as
a way of promoting this type of hunting, the numbers might even grow.
Lawmakers are listening and are beginning to answer our call to action.”
However, as reported in August 10, 2007 Wall Street journal article
“Internet Hunting Has Got to Stop -- If It Ever
Starts”
“…nobody actually hunts animals over the Internet. Although the concept --
first broached publicly by a Texas entrepreneur in 2004 -- is technically
feasible, it hasn't caught on………... With no Internet hunters to defend the
sport, the Humane Society's lobbying campaign has been hugely successful….
Even the National Rifle Association endorses the ban. "It's pretty easy to
outlaw something that doesn't exist," says Rod Harder, a lobbyist for the
NRA in Oregon who supported an Internet-hunting ban that took effect in
June. "We were happy to do it."….
Dog and Cat Protection Act of 2000
In 2000, HSUS was behind another ‘feel good” bill that is now a law, ‘Dog
and Cat Protection Act of 2000’, which prohibits imports or exports of dog
or cat fur containing products into or out of the United States.
According to
U.S. Customs and Border protection:
“The Act is a result of an 18-month undercover investigation by the Humane
Society of the United States (HSUS) that exposed the widespread brutal
slaughter of more than two million domestic dogs and cats each year by
Chinese and other Asian manufacturers. The fur of these dogs and cats is
commonly used in the manufacture of products such as fur coats, fur-trimmed
gloves, hats, and figurines, which are then sold in the United States and
around the world.”
Even though HSUS solicited money for the cause in the name of protecting
domestic dogs and cats, the fur mostly used is a raccoon dog, which is not a
domestic dog. It is a wild animal, a member of the canid family (which
includes dogs, wolves, and foxes). Since fur imported as coat trim is
heavily chemically processed, there was no sure way in 2000 to even test if
the fur was really dog or a wild animal.
Dog and Cat Fur Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007
Seems like banning dog and cat fur imports is not good enough, since HSUS is
now pushing for another federal bill, “Dog and Cat Fur Prohibition
Enforcement Act of 2007”, which would add raccoon dog as prohibited fur
import.
HSUS claims this act will:
“Protect consumers and animals by stopping the sale of
fur from raccoon dogs—a member of the
dog family sometimes skinned alive in China—and requiring all fur garments
to be labeled. Recent HSUS tests showed that animal fur is frequently
mislabeled or marked as faux fur.”
There is still not sure easy and fast way to test and distinguish chemically
processed and dyed domestic dog and raccoon dog fur. So once again, this is
just another excuse for HSU$ to introduce feel good useless legislation
which will accomplish nothing for the animals in China, but will bring
donations to HSUS because it seems like on the surface that they are ‘saving
dogs’ and that they care.
Regardless of whether you support or hate wearing
fur, how will this bill protect the animals in China? Eating dogs is part of
Chinese culture, whether we Americans like it or not. This bill didn’t
reduce the demand on dog meat there or improve animal welfare conditions in
Asia.
Chinese are not a wasteful nation, and rather then waste the animal fur
after eating the meat, they decided to put the whole animal to use. Banning
dog and cat fur imports to USA didn’t not change the Chinese food
preferences or their culture, the dogs will still be killed and eaten like
they were before, but their fur will go to waste. Instead, Chinese might end
up killing more animals which they will not eat, but whose fur is still
legal to export, thus, more animals might end up being killed because of
this ‘feel good” bill, which brought lots of donation to HSUS from animal
lovers who assumed they were saving Chinese dogs from torture. It also
wasted taxpayers’ money and Congressional resources, but did nothing for the
Chinese animals themselves.
HSUS claims their tests in 2007 showed
that Nordstrom stores’ coats had real dog fur on them.
However, according to Consumer Smarts, the
fur was legal and not a dog.
“Nordstrom had a third party test the vest using the worldwide standard
protocol for fiber analysis-the American Association of Textile Chemist and
Colorist (AATCC) 20A for Microscopic Fiber/Fur Identification-and it tested
as coyote.”
Exotic Animals and Public Safety
This country also had lots of ‘animal rights’ legislation introduced to ban
private ownership of exotic and wild animals in the name of public safety.
However, in the USA, only one person dies per year as a result of an attack
by captive big cat, 1.5 by captive reptile, 0.81 by captive elephant, 0.125
by captive bear and 0 by captive non-human primate. Majority of the deaths
happened to the owners and trainers themselves, which is an occupation
hazard they voluntarily accept.
In 2003,
HSUS’s ‘Captive Wildlife Safety Act’, CWSA, was introduced and was
since signed into a law. It prohibits non commercial owners of exotic cats
taking their
beloved pet with them across the state
lines.
According to US Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for
implementing this HSUS proposed legislation:
“We recognize that a number of incidents involving big cat escapes and/or
human injuries have been reported since December 2003. However, to our
knowledge, many (if not most) of
these incidents have involved owners who would be
exempt under the CWSA and were not caused by, or
related to, an act that would be prohibited under this law.”
A bill currently in Congress would add
non human primates to the list of
prohibited species.
HSUS’s final goal is banning private ownership of all exotics.
And while they happily promoted and took donations for their “ Pets
Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act”, they kept pushing for
bills that would ban people from taking their exotic pet with them across
the state line, regardless of the reason (move, trip to the veterinarian,
evacuation in the case of emergency).
Seems like if your pet is exotic, you might have to make a choice in the
case of a natural disaster: break a law supported by HSUS, or leave your
exotic pet behind.
Doesn’t seem like this bill is helping animals either, if anything, it will
cause more animals to be homeless if pet owners can’t legally keep and move
them to another exotic friendly state. Can you imagine the impact on
domestic shelters if the Congress banned people from taking their domestic
pets with them when moving across the state lines?
Treating domestic animals differently than exotics is a form of
discrimination and ‘animal racism’ and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Horse Slaughter Prohibition Bill
The latest HSUS ‘pet project” is ‘Horse Slaughter Prohibition bill’ to
“prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving,
possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to
be slaughtered for human consumption, and for other purposes”. Just like the
fur prohibition act, it does absolutely nothing to save horses and will in
fact cause more animals to end up slaughtered.
US horse owners until now had a choice what to do with old horses: kill them
themselves, pay a veterinarian to do it, or sell/donate them to a slaughter
house. However, it can cost $100 to euthanize a horse; disposal is up the
the owner.
Cremation can easily cost about $1,200,
while landfills can charge over $20 per ton, not including the
transportation to the landfill.
There is no market for human horse consumption in USA, all the market is
overseas, and the only users of horse meat in USA were zoos and other
carnivore owners. Horse is a healthy lean meat for captive carnivores, such
as big cats or birds of prey. Since majority of horse slaughter houses was
horse meat for overseas human consumption, the horse act caused them to
close. This act will not save any horses, as the horses used to go to
slaughter house will still have to be euthanized, they were sent to a
slaughter house because it was their ’time to go’ in the fist place.
This act did NOT reduce the demand for horse meat; it just shifted the
supply side to Canada or Mexico horse processing plants that are more than
happy to supply horse meat to Europeans or US zoo markets. Since demand
stayed the same and US horses’ meat will go to waste, this act will increase
the number of
slaughtered horses in Canada or Mexico. The end result will be
more horses ending up slaughtered than if the Horse act was never introduced
in the first place.
America, the Land of the Free?
Even people who don't own animals should realize that every time a new law
is passed, the government powers and bureaucracy grow and our personal
freedoms shrink. Many animal rights activists sensationalize exotic animal
attacks and are presenting exotic animal ownership as a public safety issue
to scare the public, but there are no facts to back it up. This fraud and
fear mongering has to stop. The wild habitat of many animals is
disappearing, and the only way to save them form extinction is captive
breeding, with private individuals having the majority of captive habitat.
Our legislators are sentencing wild and exotic animals to extinction by
passing exotic animals bans.
Our Congress needs to stop listening to animal rights groups and wasting
nation’s resources and tax payers’ money on feel good legislation. Our
country is at war fighting International terrorism shedding our soldiers’
blood trying to bring freedoms to others, while our own government at home
is removing freedoms of its own citizens. It is time to stop this insanity,
time for legislators to do the right thing, no more HSUS bills.
Making a Real Difference
If HSUS really wants to help animals, they need to go back to their roots 50
years ago, help animals in shelters, which is what many donors expect them
to do when sending a check. HSUS should put a self imposed 10 year
moratorium on lobbying and legislation. They should, instead, financially
help struggling shelters, finance adoption drives which would increase the
number of animals adopted since many people don’t like going to sterile
shelters or look in the eyes of death row animals they can not take home.
Rather than push for harmful mandatory early spay and neuter laws, HSUS
could set up clinics offering voluntary low cost spay and neuter. Most
people are not against spaying or neutering, what majority are opposing is
‘mandatory and ‘early” castration and hysterectomy.
This country doesn’t have online hunting or exotic animal problem, the
animals in real need now are domestics in shelters and rescue centers, and
if HSUS finally helps them directly, they can make a difference in the lives
of real living and breathing animals that need their help RIGHT NOW.
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