November 3, 2003
Like many operators in the world of animal rights activism, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) presents a soft and cuddly face.
But according to the award-winning ActivistCash.com website, "HSUS is an animal-rights organization masquerading as an animal-welfare group."
ActivistCash.com does not pull any punches and has a reliable record when it comes to fact finding on the fine art of rip-off.
"HSUS," is says, "does not run a single animal shelter, instead spending its millions opposing modern livestock and poultry farming, circuses and dog breeding. HSUS has managed to fool millions of Americans with its fundraising letters featuring the furry faces of Fluffy and Fido. Now it appears to have fooled the federal government, too."
In late September, the American federal government awarded HSUS $500,000 "to support environmentally sustainable and humane agriculture as well as the protection of wildlife and habitat in Central America."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick made the announcement at Shuchil, an El Salvador-based company that HSUS is supposed to help with its half mil. Shuchil produces organic soaps, including pet soap, out of a woman’s home.
The USTR notes that HSUS "will work with Shuchil to have its products certified and sold as "Certified Humane" in the U.S. and Europe.
HSUS is one of many environmental and animal-rights groups that have joined the highly lucrative third-party certification business.
For the right amount of money, activist groups will give producers "eco labels". HSUS is also behind the recently introduced "Certified Humane Raised & Handled" label.
Macdonald’s, lobster style
Now that science has proclaimed that lobsters are victims of fast food too, how long will it be before People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) get on the case of Maine lobstermen?
Nobody chooses a skinny lobster from the restaurant tank. So lobsters get fattened up on pounds of herring that lobstermen put out as bait in their lobster traps, according to a study that shows bait is the main food in a lobster’s diet.
"The study supports the long-held belief that lobster traps essentially act like fast-food restaurants for lobsters off the Maine coast," reports the Associated Press. "It also suggests that the huge amount of herring bait–Maine lobstermen use millions of kilograms of it annually–is contributing to the healthy lobster stocks and the explosive catches of recent years."
Jonathan Grabowski, a scientist with the non-profit Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said it reveals that lobsters that chow down on herring grew 16 percent more on average last summer and fall than lobsters without herring in their diets.
"A lot of the research was motivated by the industry suspicion that herring might be important as a subsidy to lobster populations," said Grabowski, who led the study. "This study certainly supports that notion."
In the sea world, lobsters have la dolce vita. Fishermen have long admitted that putting bait, herring being the most popular, in traps amounts to feeding lobsters by providing them free meals. Little lobsters can freely crawl in and out of traps. But the free ride is over when they grow large enough to be trapped.
PETA’s press sluts
The detractors of Ingrid Newkirk, President and co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had made many disparaging remarks about the radical animal-rights activist.
But the supreme insult may have come from Newkirk herself: "We are complete press sluts." (The New Yorker, April 14, 2003).
A pot and limo for every chicken
By Neil Hacioglu
A Washington, D.C. Kentucky Fried Chicken protest, staged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), may have seen tables beginning to turn on animal rights activists.
It was the same refrain when PETA activists gathered outside KFC. The company is consistent in its mistreatment of chickens, etc., etc. With signs reading, "The Colonel’s Secret Recipe: Live, Scalding, Painful, Debeaking, Crippled Chicken", and "If you pet a dog, don’t eat a pig", the 40 or so activists seemed to unleash the fury of local residents on site. "Go home!" the residents shouted back.
In a CNSNews.com interview, Bruce Friedrich, PETA’s director of vegan outreach, claimed that "KFC breeds and drugs animals so they they fall cripple under their own weight." He also stated that KFC buys 750 million chickens a year and have "done nothing" to eliminate their worst abuses.
David Martosko, director of research for the Centre for Consumer Freedom told reporters that "if every livestock animal in America were given its own apartment, limousine and personal trainer, PETA would still argue that they have the ‘right’ not to be eaten."
Added to PETA’s recent woes is the formal complaint sent to the IRS by the Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise, which alleges PETA’s financial support of some FBI-designated domestic terrorist groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
PETA is denying any of the allegations brought before the IRS.
No Miami dock for Greenpeace
The Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, an offspring of Rainbow Warrior, which has made a career of stopping business in the ports of the world, recently gave the environmental activists a taste of their own medicine.
It all started in Florida where the sun shines on everyone except Greenpeace when Esperanza was denied access to the port of Miami, on allegations that the ship poses a security threat.
According to several Miami sources, Esperanza–a refurbished Soviet icebreaker–wanted to dock in Miami to re-supply, change its crew, and host tours aboard ship.
Permission was flatly denied.
Rose Young, deputy campaign director for Greenpeace U.S.A, reported that the Esperanza had to make do with docking outside the port, with its crew members having to rely on inflatable boats to get to the mainland.