HSUS Howls Lack Grey Matter

Last week, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle took to his blog to vent about a new Hollywood flick called “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson. The basic plot is that a plane crashes in the frozen wilderness and Neeson and six other survivors struggle to make it back to civilization, while being molested by a pack of wolves. Pacelle warned people to “stay away.” His gripe is that “The Grey”—a fictional movie—takes liberties with how grey wolves really act.

Pacelle’s solution is to watch “Babe”—a movie with talking animals—or “Bambi,” a Disney cartoon. Does anybody else see the irony here?

The political correctness coming from the animal rights movement is ridiculous. (PETA too voiced its criticism of "The Grey" for making wolves look bad—unsurprising, given PETA and HSUS have the same agenda.) By asking people to watch one form of animal fiction over another, Pacelle’s doing what he rails against. Deer are not like Bambi, and pigs are not like Babe. (Ask a hog farmer.)

Wolves are predators. Of people? Not so much. Of people’s livestock? Sure.

But let’s not forget: It’s just entertainment. It’s Hollywood, not a real-world debate on wolf delisting. It’s…fiction, not a documentary on animals.

Asking Hollywood not to play up the scary wolf stereotype is like asking Jackie Chan not to make martial arts movies. What next? Will HSUS tell elementary school libraries to stop stocking Little Red Riding Hood or Three Little Pigs?

It’s hard to believe the average viewer can’t make the distinction. And the movie itself is about much more than the survivors’ struggles with the wolves, but also about their internal struggles.

We have to wonder: Did Pacelle even see the movie? His boycott call came two days before the movie even opened. Pacelle’s post was full of vague, broad assertions but light on details. It’s doubtful he would have been invited to the premier. And it’s not like MegaVideo is still around.

Of course, all the bluster from HSUS and PETA isn’t doing much: “The Grey” was the top-grossing movie across the country last weekend. For all his talk about HSUS being mainstream, Pacelle's cries apparently fell on deaf ears (except for a few comments he printed from readers, including one saying she would misanthropically “root for” the wolves).

If the noble wolf is such a delicate creature, then why doesn’t Wayne Pacelle go live among them once his book tour is over? One man has already. Wayne is always playing up his “bond” with animals, so we’re confident he could fit right in.

Is Modern Man a Part of Nature, or Apart from Nature?

We’ve written before about the “humane paradox,” namely that the “protecting ‘all animals’” goal of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) ultimately falls apart when some animals naturally harm other animals. Lions eat gazelles, after all—an act that surely violates the gazelle’s “right” to live and provides it a less than humane death.

An HSUS lawsuit filed last week against the National Marine Fisheries Service ups the ante even further: HSUS is objecting to the government agency’s chosen method of resolving the conflict between two endangered species.

The Bonneville Dam is on the Washington-Oregon border, about 150 miles up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean. Sea lions congregate there and feast on the salmon population.

The dam, naturally, has made it hard for the fish to get further upstream, despite “fish ladders” built to facilitate their travel. It’s easy pickings for the sea lions, but this puts them in competition with both four Native American tribes authorized to fish for salmon, as well as conservation efforts designed to protect them. The National Marine Fisheries Service has chosen to reconcile these competing interests by killing a few of the seals with the biggest appetites.

It’s debatable whether it’s necessary for the government to mark some of the “troublesome” sea lions for a euphemistic “lethal taking.” Still, the feds have only killed 27 animals under this program since 2008—or about 0.01 percent of the 265,000-strong California sea lion population.

HSUS, predictably, objects to every seal death. But one of its affiliated organizations is at least daring to ask the obvious: “[W]hen one endangered species is the main food source for yet another endangered species..how do you protect them both?”

How Many Animals Does HSUS (Actually) Care For?

The Humane Society of the United States hauls in $100 million per year, and has another $191 million in assets. So you might think this national “humane society” would be able to help millions of animals. After all, HSUS shares less than 1 percent of its budget with hands-on pet shelters, so the other 99 percent must be spent directly on caring for Garfield and Odie, right?

Not so fast: It’s true that HSUS runs a few animal sanctuaries—generally for horses and wildlife, though, not pets. But HSUS helpfully, at least in two recent annual reports, put exact numbers on the animals it claims to be caring for.

Could HSUS be doing more? We’ll let you decide.