Mar 01 2010
“I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals.”
Over the years, we've heard many people—including dog breeders, ranchers, dairymen, and the occasional veterinarian—claim that HSUS top dog Wayne Pacelle once denied he had any sort of "hands-on" fondness for animals. We've always filed this under the "rumor" category because we couldn't substantiate a quotation from Pacelle that came anywhere near that.
Until now.
For research geeks like us, the Amazon.com "Search Inside" feature is nothing short of a miracle. With just a few carefully chosen search terms, the elusive quote popped right out.
It turns out that in 1992, Pacelle spent some time hanging out with Ted Kerasote, a nature writer who made his name penning articles for Audubon, Outside, and Sports Afield magazines. Their discussions became a short episode in Kerasote's book Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt.
Kerasote writes that the then-26-year-old Pacelle told him: "I don't have a hands-on fondness for animals. I did not grow up bonded to any particular nonhuman animal. I like them and I pet them and I'm kind to them, but there's no special bond between me and other animals."
We're reproducing a handful of pages from this book so you can see the quotations in their proper context. (Quotations? Plural? Yes. There's more.)
In what we imagine must have been an unusually candid, comfortable conversation for Pacelle, Kerasote asks him if his opposition to hunting is flexible enough to "let people hunt for food if they did it respectfully."
Pacelle replies, after thinking, "I think that I would campaign against it. Yes, I think that I would." He sums up his plan to target the institution of hunting like this: "We're out to minimize suffering wherever it can be done ... abusive forms of hunting for now, all hunting eventually."
And what about pets? Kerasote presses Pacelle, asking if he would "envision a future with no pets in the world."
"I wouldn't say that I envision that, no," Pacelle offers. "If I had my personal view perhaps that might take hold. In fact, I don't want to see another cat or dog born. It's not something I strive for, though."
In Kerasote's brief encounters, he also draws out Wayne Pacelle, and then his colleague Heidi Prescott, as "zero population growth" believers where humans are concerned.
Pacelle admits: "I don't believe in the green revolution as a means of feeding the world, and I certainly don't plan to have children. I take it as a very serious personal responsibility not to put another consumer on this planet." Prescott confirms that she had her tubes tied at age 25.
We should say in closing that to our knowledge, no one has asked Wayne Pacelle in recent years if he still agrees with these statements. Perhaps someone should.
Posted on 03/01/2010 at 09:15 AM by the HumaneWatch Team
Book Reviews • Hunting & Fishing • (8) CommentsComments
“cared for animals in all senses, and accounted for their nutritional needs… “
Herein lies the conundrum. To properly care for most household pets, one must feed them properly….which means feeding them…meat.
Interesting that 15 years later he is now producing some vegan slop of an excuse for dog food. Is this a way around his double-talk that they are not out to end animal ownership? Something around the lines of, ‘I guess keeping a dog would be okay, but only if you feed it THIS’.
Pacelle defenders say he can’t be held to statements he made 15 years ago. People change, you know.
Well, does that also mean his childhood history has changed?
In Bloodties, he says “I did not grow up bonded to any particular nonhuman animal. I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals…”
However, in a speech to Ag broadcasters in May of 2009 he said, “I grew up, just like I am sure most of you, with a great love of animals….I saw in them the same spark of life that we all have, as individuals”
You can find it all here:
http://www.hpj.com/archives/2009/may09/may4/Pacelle.mp3
Tracy
“Interesting that 15 years later he is now producing some vegan slop of an excuse for dog food. Is this a way around his double-talk that they are not out to end animal ownership?”
I kinda thought it was a plan for quickly destroying the health of all animals in the guise of that double-talk…
I seem to recall some profile of Pacelle, maybe on TV, where he talked about moving in with someone who had a cat, and how he never was able to establish any rapport at all with it. He came off as pretty much clueless why anyone would allow a cat in their house. I don’t like cats myself (allergic) but I have some understanding why other folks like them. Not much, but some.
When Wayne Pacelle first allowed MIchael Vick to get involved with the HSUS, I was very skeptical about Vick’s sincerety. I still am. However, Vick is speaking twice a month to kids to encourage them not to get involved in dog fighting. That can only has positive consequences - for the kids, for the dogs. Also, here in the Midwest where I live, some time in the past year, a large, multi-state dog fighting ring was busted. Approximately either 400 or 500 dogs were rescued from the blood sport. (Boggles that mind, doesn’t it?) The HSUS, in conjunction with several other animal protective organizations, were the ones who brought those dispicable dog fighters to justice and gave the dogs protection, rehabilitation (when feasible), and a chance at being adopted into a good home.
[Padraig said] ...I seem to recall some profile of Pacelle, maybe on TV, where he talked about moving in with someone who had a cat,...
Pacelle shares a condo with a woman whose name I’ve forgotten, who works in the HSUS effort to exploit religion to gain followers. She owns a cat. I have seen at least two photos of Pacelle with that cat, promoting his newly-remembered childhood “great love of animals.” He looks very uncomfortable.
elaine
LA Times, July 2008
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/19/local/me-pacelle19?pg=4
“Divorced long ago, he lives in a condo in Washington, D.C., with his girlfriend, Christine Gutleben, who runs the Humane Society’s program that reaches out to religious leaders and congregations for support on animal welfare issues.
For years, Pacelle did not even have a pet. But when Gutleben moved in with him, she brought along her cat, Libby.
“He’s interesting with animals,” said Gutleben, 30. “He doesn’t want to bother them or invade their space. He’s like ‘Hello, Libby.’ ” She imitated a formal, masculine voice, then laughed. “I just want to swoop her up and bury my head in her fur. He just lets her be. So, of course, she just crawls on the counters and he lets her crawl up and sit on his chest. If he needs to work, he’ll ask me to remove her.” “
Tracy
This is interesting to me.
It seems to me that a lot of the politically correct AR supportive foot soldiers (who drink the Koolaid but are probably unaware of the agenda) have very mixed feelings about animals. They handle them very gingerly and appear to be afraid to offend them in any way. Or perhaps they are actually afraid of them, consciously or not.
It’s as though they become involved with animals out of a sense of duty, rather than a real affinity or affection for them.
The whole relationship between animals and people has become corrupted by the AR domination of animal handling and management, and one wonders it it’s possible for it to recover.
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It seems pretty clear that Pacelle has only affection for the thoughts that swirl around in his head. Other life forms, or any sort of reproduction seems to be terrifying to him—animals or people. This fear seems to be masked with the self-righteous campaign about leaving a “footprint” but also suggests some far more serious personal issues.
Interesting also that the purported campaign to “go vegan” seems to neglect to consider that fruits, vegetables, and grains are also “living things” as well. Wonder how long it will take the campaign to protect them as will from human consumption will take. Who knows, perhaps we also need to stop planting crops in organized fashion and “just let them reproduce freely without our intervention” LOL.—which means Laugh out Loud, Wayne.