8.5 Million New HumaneWatchers?

If you’re among syndicated radio host Mark Levin’s 8.5 million listeners, you probably heard us on his show last night. Levin, an animal lover and author of the bestselling Rescuing Sprite, invited our executive director on the air to discuss the shocking revelations of another of our websites, PetaKillsAnimals.com. (Background: PETA kills thousands of the adoptable animals in its care every year.) But as we told Levin’s audience, there’s an even worse situation with another animal “charity”: HSUS.

There’s another organization out there that in some ways is actually guilty of a bigger scam, and that’s the Humane Society of the United States. People think that the Humane Society of the United States is connected to animal shelters, and they are not. And they are collecting over $100 million every year. These are people that put more money into their executive pension plan, from the donations that are coming in—people think that money’s going to shelters—they put more money into their executive pension plan than they put into shelters. If you go to HumaneWatch.org, you will see an even bigger scam than PETA.

Our message resonated so strongly with one Levin listener—a 20-year member of HSUS—that she called in at the end of the show to share her shock at learning the truth. Here’s the audio:

The next time a paid HSUS shill claims that all the organization’s members know what it’s really about, point them to this. If someone who has been donating to HSUS for two decades is shocked to learn that HSUS spends more on its pensions than on pet-shelter grants, it’s beyond debate that HSUS has duped the general public.

You can listen to the full show here (our segment begins at time index 01:30:00.). Levin says it’s best to give to your local humane society. We couldn’t agree more.

The Real “Bond”

With the news this morning that the Pennsylvania SPCA conducted raids to bust up what officials called “the largest dogfighting ring they’ve ever seen” in Philadelphia, it’s worth asking once again: Has Michael Vick’s return to the NFL as the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback made dogfighting “cool” in the City of Brotherly Love?

Evidence points to “yes.” Animal fighting investigations tripled in 2009, the year Vick signed with the Eagles, compared with 2008. Most of these cases were in Philadelphia, and most were dogfighting-related.

To whatever extent Michael Vick’s post-prison image rehab is responsible, none of it would have been possible without the Humane Society of the United States and its CEO Wayne Pacelle. HSUS sent Vick on a speaking tour to criticize dogfighting after receiving a $50,000 grant from the Eagles.

Pacelle’s advocacy for Vick even led him to claim in December that the felon "would do a good job as a pet owner.”

Now, with the release of his first book (The Bond), Pacelle justifies mending Vick’s image. On Saturday he told NPR: “There is a utility for the animal protection cause in having him out there speaking.”

HSUS released a pair of video “trailers” for The Bond, which explores Pacelle’s view of the bond between humans and animals. But this fanfare and self-promotion—and the book itself—may have missed the real Bond. The one between Wayne Pacelle and Michael Vick.

So we’ve made our own video trailer. Unlike Pacelle’s 448-page tome, it cuts right to the chase.

Enjoy, and be sure to share!

This Movie Will Not Win a Genesis Award

Many Americans are still confused about what the Humane Society of the United States is. (To review, HSUS is an animal rights group, not a pet-shelter organization.) And one way to get that message front-and-center is to put a video on YouTube.

That’s just what the Missouri Farmers Care coalition did late last week. The group's new 2-minute video is quickly making the rounds, laying bare many of the basic facts about HSUS—including its heavy spending on fundraising, its anti-agriculture philosophy, and its shocking habit of snubbing pet shelters.

We see HSUS donors becoming former HSUS donors nearly every day, and it’s often due to the grassroots efforts of HumaneWatch readers. Enjoy the movie, and be sure to share it with your friends.