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BY Lowell E. Baier
Fall 2010 issue of Fair Chase
Queen, country and fox hunting are dear to England’s landed gentry, all part of the rarefied world of inherited privilege and tradition. However, when the British Labor Party banned fox hunting in England in 2004, the victory went not to the liberal politicians, but rather to the secretive, clandestine, Machiavellian worldwide animal rights and liberation movement begun in the early 1960s by a group of United Kingdom Oxford University academics known as the “Oxford Group.” Animal rightists and liberationists are of a very different orientation than the anti-hunting movement, which is a minor component of their agenda.
Rightists are a distilled, radical extension far beyond anti-hunters, driven by intellectuals, academics and the scholastic legal community in a global political movement. Animal rights advocates seek to end the rigid moral and legal distinctions drawn between humans and animals, end the status of animals as property or prey, and end their use in research, food, clothing, hunting and fishing, and the entertainment industries. Their aim is to remove an animal’s current status as “property,” and to recognize and grant animals “personhood”; that is, to award them legal rights and standing on the same terms humans enjoy fundamental rights to protect their basic interests. The “bible” of the modern animal rights movement, Animal Liberation, was authored in 1975 by Professor Peter Singer from Princeton University.
The philosophical and moral foundations for the animal rights position are that animals have the ability to suffer and feel pain, and that capacity is the vital characteristic that gives every creature with a will to live the right to equal consideration which must be recognized in any moral community and philosophy of natural law. Contrarians argue that animals lack rationality to distinguish between right and wrong; they lack language and are not able to enter into a social contract, make moral choices, assume moral obligations, nor have a moral identity; and hence, cannot be regarded as a possessor of rights. Only humans have duties, therefore only humans have rights, and rights must be accompanied by duties. Theologically the idea of a divine hierarchy based on the concept of “dominion” from Genesis (1:20-28) has been interpreted for centuries to imply ownership, i.e., property rights over birds, wild animals, livestock, and fish.
Animal Welfare morphs into Animal Rights
Since ancient times, animals have been protected from cruelty and animal welfare has been a consistent theme in animal protection legislation. In England, this became an important movement in the early 19th century where it grew alongside the humanitarian current that advanced human rights, including the anti-slavery and women’s suffrage movements. In 1824, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) was established in London, followed in 1866 by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and in 1875 by the National Anti-Vivisection Society, opposed to animals being used in research, was founded. Two years later (1877), the American Humane Association (AHA) was formed as an advocate for both child protection and animal welfare/animal shelter programs. Following World War II, the growth of affluent suburbia and the increase of an elderly population living independently combined to increase the need for pets and companion animals. Today 43 percent of households have pets in this country. Humane groups flourished and prospered on this expanding base of pet owners, and with their growth came conflicts amongst their leaders over the extent to which principles of animal protectionism should be articulated and advocated. During this same period, societal progressivism ushered in the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, disability, handicapped and elder rights, the global human rights movement, the growth of environmentalism and the recognition of endangered species, the right to life movement, and most recently, gay and lesbian rights. The extension of “rights” principles by analogy to animals became an easy reach for activist radicals both here and abroad when environmentalists began winning endangered species protection in the courts starting in the 1970s.
Agitation for more advocacy following World War II split the AHA, and in 1954 The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) split off, and then in 1960 suffered its own split when The Society for Animal Protective Legislation (SAPL) was created, which has lobbied for every important measure on animal legislation since. SAPL is presently an arm of the Animal Welfare Institute which was founded in 1951. These have included the Humane Slaughter Act (1958), the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act (1966), the Endangered Species Act (1969), the Horse Protection Act (1970), the Wild Horse and Burro Act (1971), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), and all extensions and amendments thereto.
One of the more philosophical animal rightists groups in California clearly defines the animal rightists’ demarcation from the original animal welfare movement drawn by them today:
The animal welfare movement begun in the mid-19th century... was quite limited to improve the treatment of animals that were being utilized by humans without changing the basic nature of the human-animal relationship. That relationship was and still is largely based on ownership and exploitation.
Unlike the animal welfare movement, the animal rights movement recognized that there is no way that humans can own and exploit animals without cruelty as the very acts of ownership and exploitation invariably lead to horrific abuses and deny animals the natural lives that their species were intended to lead. Thus, the animal rights movement seeks nothing less than the complete transformation of our relationship with other species from one based on ownership and exploitation, to one based on a guardianship model in which all human relationships with animals must be based on what is in the best interest of the animals, not humans. The guardianship model for animals is itself based on the guardianship model used for children and it recognized that animals, like children, cannot protect themselves from many harms and need special protections. Thus, the animal rights movement seeks to create legal protections for animals, not as an end to themselves, which is the goal of animal welfare, but as stepping stones on the way to the total liberation of animals from the ancient model based on ownership and exploitation.
Fortunately, the animal rights movement’s influence in the animal welfare community seems to be growing every year with more and more animal welfare organizations, like HSUS, adopting animal liberation goals including the most important to our transformation to a more humane human species: vegetarianism. Thanks to animal rights groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Farm Sanctuary and the League for Earth and Animal Protection, we can look forward to the day when the animal welfare movement will be relegated to the dust bin of history, where it belongs, to be replaced by true animal liberation (League for Earth and Animal Protection website, www.leapnonprofit.org).
HSUS didn’t start out as an animal rightist organization in 1954, but by 1990, in the view of one watch dog group, Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), its focus changed from animal welfare to animal rights spurred by the influence of the British Oxford Group’s philosophical influence and militant competition to capture donations being attracted by PETA, which was started in 1980.
Rhetoric and linguistics became the bridge the animal rights and liberation movement led by HSUS used to hook the emotions of the world’s public into believing animals had “rights.” The humane movement had been grounded primarily in sincere, benevolent sentimentality towards animals, and the words they used to express their sentiments were “welfare,” “inhumane,” “cruel,” and “protection.” These are the same words used by the animal rightists interchangedly over the last 50 years, but they deviously added the concept of “rights” into their rhetoric. Subconsciously the public has now come to believe that animals really do have rights because of our confusing parlance using words with multiple meanings that evoke emotional reaction. Emotion seems to always win over facts, and once emotion is provoked, financial contributions readily follow. That’s why animal rightists use these words interchangeably with numerous photos and videos of mistreated dogs, puppies, kittens, cows, horses, etc., to theoretically raise money to protect animals from cruelty. That’s the con, because the money doesn’t make it to your local animal welfare shelters. It goes to support the hidden agenda of animal rightists groups, i.e., get animals to be recognized with “personhood,” and award them legal rights, and end their use in research, food, clothing, hunting, entertainment, and as pets and companion animals.
HSUS Uncovered
The two most recognizable animal rights organizations are HSUS and PETA, both major multi-national conglomerate enterprises. HSUS’s name, Humane Society of the United States, can easily confuse contributors into thinking HSUS is a sanctioned government organization or agency, which it is not, and that its donations go to local animal shelters. Conveniently enough, HSUS is headquartered in our Nation’s Capital; hence, it has a Washington, D.C., address. To perpetuate the government connection myth, one of the leading investigators and authorities on animal rightist tactics reports that “…in the mid-1990s, HSUS partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to send out 125 million oversized postcards saying: ‘Don’t let your dog bite the hand that serves you!’ Recipients were asked to send a donation in a self-addressed stamped business envelope to HSUS. This was clearly a colossal fundraising freebie for HSUS. However, the real gift—in addition to the cost-free mailing to 125 million prospects courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service—was the huge credibility boost, gained by the apparent alliance with a government-run agency. This tactic succeeded in further confusing the public: United States Postal Service teams up with the United States Humane Society—it wouldn’t be too much of a reach to think HSUS wasn’t in some way government connected.”
A February 2010 national survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey, determined that 71 percent of Americans think HSUS is the national umbrella group representing thousands of local humane societies all across America, and 63 percent believed HSUS contributed most of its money to affiliated local organizations that care for cats and dogs. HSUS is ruthless in using the rhetoric of its name and national image to confuse and deceive the American public to contribute to HSUS, not realizing their money is not going to local animal shelters. In 2008, HSUS made donations to pet shelter organizations in only 15 states—less than one-half of one percent of its budget. Between 2006 and 2008, HSUS spent $277 million, yet only $6.9 million or 3 percent went to local animal shelters in 39 states. The rest, $270.1 million, was spent on litigation, lobbying, legislation, advertising, fundraising, direct mail, telemarketing, grant proposals, special events, public relations, and related programs and salaries for 555 employees with regional staffs operating in 33 states that service a reported membership and constituent base of 11.5 million. HSUS’s 2009 annual report reveals HSUS has net assets of $191.9 million, $27.2 million in cash alone. Total revenues and contributions were $126.7 million. Expenditures for fundraising were $30.9 million, with an additional $5.6 million spent for fundraising support services. In 2009, 37 cents of every dollar contributed to HSUS went back out to raise more money. This led the American Institute of Philanthropy to grade HSUS “C-minus” in 2009, and in 2010 Charity Navigator downgraded HSUS’ rating from four stars to three because of its fundraising. Charity Navigator also downgraded HSUS’ global arm Humane Society International from three stars to one, its lowest rating.
HSUS’ diverse programs have included varying tactics to spread its message such as the following:
- The passage of 121 pro-animal state laws, 26 successful ballot initiatives nationwide such as a 2008 California ballot initiative (Proposition 2) to create stringent regulations for livestock farming, which included making it illegal for farmers from any of the 50 states selling eggs in California to maintain hens in confined cages (they want enlarged “enriched cages” comparable to a free-range system);
- Lobbying for legislation prohibiting release-bird shooting, dove hunting, bear baiting and hound hunting;
- Prohibiting the expansion of hunting and trapping on national wildlife refuges utilizing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA);
- Preventing a black bear hunting season in New Jersey;
- Banning trapping in the state of Washington (Initiative 713);
- Banning pork producers in Arizona and Florida from confining sows during pregnancy in gestation pens;
- Banning greyhound racing in Massachusetts;
- Supporting a “humane farms” political action committee and ballot group in Arizona and Colorado;
- Eliminating the use of animals in biomedical or any research labs;
- Phasing out pet breeding, zoos, rodeos, horse racing and circus animal acts;
- Promoting fur-free clothing, and ending fur sales at over 100 retailers including Saks Incorporated, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, J.C. Penney Co., and Lord & Taylor;
- Demonizing hunters and trappers;
- Disseminating literature and lesson plans to grade schools with the message that animals used in medical research is “bad”;
- 35,000 classrooms (more than 868,000 children) in grades K-6 monthly receive KIND News promoting the consumption of only cage-free eggs, and the message that eating meat and drinking milk causes animal cruelty, thus promoting a vegetarian diet, and stories on how children must learn to live peacefully with wildlife and not disturb or hunt animals; and
- Infiltrating unsuspecting youth groups such as the National 4-H Conference, the Youth Convention of the U.S. Equestrian Federation, etc.
One of HSUS’ major programs was enabled by the 1970 Horse Protection Act and 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act. Political agitation and litigation initiated by HSUS to compel the Bureau of Land Management to strictly interpret and implement the 1971 Act has now resulted in 37,000 feral horses and burros free-ranging in herds far larger than the carrying capacity of the land, degrading the landscapes by overgrazing and hard-packing the soil and polluting the streams across 45.96 million acres of public rangelands. Another 33,000 feral horses and burros are in 35 government-maintained corrals and pastures that cost the American taxpayer $40 million annually. That’s 70,000 feral horses and burros the American taxpayer supports. In FY 2007, the federal government’s budget to support this was $38.8 million. In the FY 2011 budget, that figure has risen to $75.7 million, and another $42.5 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to buy land for feral horse and burro preserves in the East and Midwest.
USDA-regulated commercial horse slaughter for human consumption in America was halted by congressional mandate, driven by HSUS, forcing horses to be commercially slaughtered in Canada and Mexico by unregulated, inhumane means. American horse meat is considered a delicacy in many foreign countries. HSUS is currently lobbying Congress to prevent the export of horses from the United States for slaughter and human consumption abroad, the consequences of which may force many owners to simply abandon their injured, sick and old horses to die if they can’t afford to euthanize and properly dispose of their carcasses.
For more on HSUS’s activities, go to its website (www.hsus.org) and click on the links to “Campaigns,” “Victories,” Legislation,” and “Legal Action.” The scope of its diverse activities is both amazing and disturbing. HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle is well-versed in the importance of political access and influencing policy decisions. Animal issues are a priority for politicians in maintaining their popularity and getting votes, given the public’s mainstream interest in animals; hence public association for politicians with HSUS appears to be one of Pacelle’s highest priorities in Washington in maintaining and cultivating HSUS’s political agenda. Pacelle proudly says, “We’ve turned sentiment into legislation and law.” It is reported that Pacelle, while working for the Fund for Animals (now part of HSUS) proposed in 1988 merging HSUS, PETA, and the Fund for Animals, which would have really increased their combined political muscle. Moreover, HSUS engages in campaign funding backing or opposing candidates based on their animal-related voting history. HSUS even has its own accredited Humane Society University in Washington, D.C., offering bachelor’s degrees in Animal Study, Animal Policy and Advocacy and Humane Leadership.
According to the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), one item you will not find on the HSUS website is its connection to people like John “J.P.” Goodwin, affiliated with listed FBI eco-terrorist organizations. Goodwin, a former Animal Liberation Front (ALF) member with a lengthy criminal record and history of promoting arson to achieve animal liberation, was hired by HSUS in 1997, according to the CCF. The HSUS sent him to China on an anti-fur junket in 2000, and a year later he was identified as a HSUS legislative affairs staffer (www.activistcash.com). CCF continues reporting that “Goodwin himself has been arrested and convicted for being the ringleader of a gang that vandalized fur retailers in multiple states during the 1990s.” The animal-rights newspaper Animal People News profiled Goodwin in 2000, noting that he “gleefully announced a string of Animal Liberation Front mink releases and arsons against furriers and fur farms” while a “spokesman” for the underground terrorist group. Goodwin also fielded press inquiries after a Petaluma, California, slaughterhouse arson in February 1997, and shocked the public with his comments on the March 1997 arson at a farmer’s feed co-op in Utah. Referring to a fire that caused almost $1 million in damage and could easily have killed a family sleeping on the premises, Goodwin told The Deseret News, “We’re ecstatic.” J.P. Goodwin doesn’t represent HSUS’ only intersection with the animal rights movement’s violent underbelly. Miyun Park, a Washington, D.C., anti-meat activist hired by HSUS in 2005, was acknowledged in 1999 as a financial benefactor of No Compromise magazine, a publication that supports the ALF and promotes arson and other violent tactics. In an investigation leading to the 2005 animal-enterprise terrorism trial of six SHAC (Stop Huntingdom Animal Cruelty) activists, Park was among those named in at least six federal wiretap warrants.
Animals Rightists take on Hunting
No one could have conceived that animal rights organizations could politically maneuver the British Parliament into banning fox hunting, yet in 2004 they did so, turning sentiment and emotion into public policy and legislation. HSUS President Pacelle speculated in 2004 that hunting in America, like the use of wild animals in circus acts and biomedical research, will end. Pacelle stated, “If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would. Just like we would shut down all dog fighting, all cock fighting or all bull fighting.” HSUS with a staff of 30 attorneys (and a network of over 1,000 pro-bono attorneys) operating in its Animal Protection Litigation Section has led much of the litigation utilizing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to force continued protection of wolves and grizzly bears from hunting, as was reported in this column in the Spring 2010 issue of Fair Chase. Moreover, they were a lead plaintiff in the case that convinced Federal District Court Judge Donald W. Molloy on August 5, 2010, to re-list the gray wolf as an endangered species in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming (even though biologically the wolves are recovered), perpetuating a case that has now been ongoing for years.
Since 1988, HSUS has been a plaintiff in 88 federal district court cases. In 2009 alone, HSUS spent $26.3 million on advocacy and public policy. However under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), enacted during the Carter Administration, and the Judgment Fund (1956), HSUS and other animal rightists and environmental activists groups recover most of their litigation costs and attorneys’ fees, so it’s cost effective and beneficial for them to perpetuate litigation such as the wolf appeals. During the last decade alone, $36 million has been paid out to just nine animal and environmental activists groups alone under EAJA and the Judgment Fund in more than 3,300 lawsuits. In the Montana wolf case referenced above, in 2008 alone, HSUS petitioned the court for $388,370 in attorney’s fees, and were awarded $263,099 by Judge Molloy. This represents an hourly rate of $300 notwithstanding a federal statutory cap of $125 per hour. HSUS received $280,000 in 2007 for a similar wolf case in the Great Lakes Region. This continued litigation is the vehicle HSUS and other rightists groups have used as a cause-related issue to solicit donations through massive, well-choreographed national public relations and fundraising campaigns. The con is that these groups collect twice. For example, they pursue the wolf issue in court and cover first their litigation costs under the EAJA and the Judgment Fund, gain huge publicity that supports and legitimizes their fundraising, and then second, solicit money from unsuspecting donors to “finance” the litigation already paid for with taxpayer dollars per the EAJA and the Judgment Fund. All the while, appeals in the wolf cases remain in play as they have for years, and the wolf remains a listed threatened and endangered species, their populations continue to expand, and their food source populations (deer and elk) continue to decline; hence, the animal rightists win again in protecting and expanding the wolf populations. And, they cunningly win again in their campaign to stop hunting because as the elk and deer populations dramatically decline, sportsmen have fewer and fewer animals to hunt.
Here are the statistics just for the greater Yellowstone ecosystem that covers three states where the gray wolf was reintroduced in 1995-96 as a “nonessential experimental population.” The official 1987 Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan provided that a sustainable population would be reached—and “recovery” assured—when three states (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) had a combined total of 300 wolves comprising 30 breeding pairs for three successive years. That objective was reached in 2002. Because of the prolonged litigation and inability of the three states to establish a hunting season (except for 2009 in Idaho and Montana), today the wolf population is 1,660—more than 5.5 times the 1987 agreed-upon limit of 300. Moreover, the animal rightist litigants are now saying in court that the 1987 limits of a sustainable population of 300 was biologically incorrect, and the number should now be 3,000 wolves.
Now translate this into the effect this expanded wolf population has had on just one state, Idaho, which has the single-largest wolf population at 835. Idaho’s management unit No. 10 on the North Fork of the Clearwater, part of the famed Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, has been home to one of America’s classic elk herds. In January, 1989, the elk herd totaled 11,507 animals, with 2,298 calves, 604 yearling males and a cow-calf ratio of 100 to 30. Twenty-one years later in February, 2010, the elk population has declined to 1,473 animals (87 percent decline), 144 calves (94 percent decline), 14 yearling males (98 percent decline), and a cow-calf ratio of 100 to 17 (43 percent decline). Look at the effect this has had on hunters, with the 2010 hunting season starting September 15, October 5 and 10, depending on the management unit. As of August 20, 2010, out of a quota of 12,715 available elk tags for Idaho residents, 7,421 remain unsold (58 percent). Available non-resident elk tags were 10,415, and 7,085 remain unsold (68 percent). The total non-resident whitetail deer tags available are 13,515, and 12,292 remain unsold (91 percent). Total license revenues lost by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game equal $10 million, which is 12.8 percent of the department’s annual budget of $78 million. Not only has the continued wolf litigation protected and expanded the wolf population, it’s dramatically taken down the elk and deer populations, reduced the incentive and number of sportsmen that want to hunt, and financially crippled the ability of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to effectively function, thus demoralizing their ability to manage their fish and game. Idaho outfitters are being put out of business, and related support services in the rural communities like motels, gas stations, grocery and sporting goods stores are all losing critical revenue. The objective of the animal rightist’s clandestine, hidden agenda over many decades is now starkly revealed. HSUS’ Pacelle would say, “Mission accomplished...for now!”
The reach of HSUS is global, operating in foreign countries under a variety of subsidiary and affiliated constituent names. The HSUS infiltrates legitimate animal welfare organizations here and abroad, and either take them over or gain enough influence operationally to change the group’s agenda to fit HSUS’ policies. Fund for Animals, The Doris Day Animal League, Ark Trust, Cleveland Armory Black Beauty Ranch, EarthVoice International, Earthkind USA, Worldwide Network, Inc., Species Survival Network, and The World Society for the Protection of Animals are just a few classic examples of the organization’s worldwide footprint, which CCF refers to as a true multinational corporation.
“Global Sanctuary System”
Another major vehicle HSUS has used to stop hunting, trapping and fishing is its Wildlife Land Trust (WLT) established in 1993 as a separate but affiliated 501(c)(3) organization, which issues its own annual report (see wildlifelandtrust.org). In 2009 alone, the WLT’s revenues totaled $7 million, 17 percent of which was spent on fundraising. The trust—which HSUS calls its “global sanctuary system”—has, through outright purchase, gift, bequest or conservation easements, created wildlife sanctuaries called “Shelters Without Walls,” throughout the world. Since 1993 WLT has directly established 101 permanent wildlife sanctuaries in 37 states alone, and countless more in 12 foreign countries (see map). “Collaborations,” as WLT calls its partnering with like-minded humane groups and governments both in the United States and across the world, have been used to lock up countless reserves and acres WLT doesn’t fully disclose other than a footnote reference to 1.8 million acres in its 2009 annual report. In Australia alone as one example, 22,487 acres are in 64 separate sanctuaries. HSUS/WLT export their sanctuaries’ agenda through playing a synergistic and catalytic role in organizing local volunteer groups. Through this role HSUS/WLT supports a specific sanctuary project, lends fundraising and organizational know-how and expertise, serves as a fiscal agent during the organizational phase of a project, providing seed money and matching grants used for outright land purchase, conservation and migration easements. Funding is also provided for biological assessments and outreach expertise, ecological and biodiversity surveys, field research and volunteer-driven assessments to establish baseline metrics, interpretive centers, hatcheries, and building rescue and rehabilitation centers. It doesn’t stop there. WLT purchases cattle- and sheep-grazing permits and allotments to permanently close areas to domestic livestock, campaigns to end trophy hunting and promotes ecotourism as the alternative, and provides economic incentives to ranchers and farmers to not kill wildlife or permit others to do so on their property.
Annually individuals have applied for highly-prized permits and tags in limited harvest areas of North America for sheep, goats, elk, moose, bear and other big game, and once drawn, pay the requisite license and tag fees, but never hunt. It would be a good guess organizations like HSUS, WLT, etc. promote this practice of impounding limited harvest permits and tags quietly amongst its members. WLT’s sanctuaries are closed to hunting and fishing. Livestock grazing and selective sustainable logging are also prohibited. Preserving critical habitats to create buffer zones and sanctuaries to avoid land fragmentation, and establishing migration and habitat connectivity corridors linking healthy animal populations to sustain biodiversity and ensure species survival, is the premise HSUS uses to justify these sanctuaries. However, many of the WLT sanctuaries are small, and it is difficult to understand how parcels of two, three, or five acres in size can fulfill the migration and connectivity vision. Moreover, hunting, fishing, and trapping are excluded, notwithstanding the fact that regulated harvests are recognized as a key scientific management principle of sustainability and biodiversity.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, which was formed in 1980, is the second-largest animal rights organization globally, and it focuses on the following core issues: ending factory and fur farming; research utilizing animals; animals used in entertainment such as aquariums, circuses, zoos and rodeos; hunting, trapping, and fishing; human consumption of meat or dairy products, or the use of leather or fur in apparel; and confined backyard dogs, cock fighting, dog fighting, and bull fighting. PETA is even opposed to the use of seeingeye dogs and police dogs. PETA President and founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group's overall goal as "total animal liberation." This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet ownership.
PETA is the most successful militant, radical, animal rights organization in America, having introduced a new level of tactical and political sophistication to animal rights advocacy following examples set by the civil rights and other liberation movements. PETA's unique niche, according to its President, is being "complete press sluts," endlessly seeking media exposure using outrageous shock and awe stunts and advertisements as part of the group's strategic campaign to promote its total animal liberation message. In PETA's 2009 annual report, Newkirk proudly wrote, "We organized more than 1,037 colorful demonstrations in 2009 that garnered lots of attention from both the public and the media." Not to be outdone by her counterpart, Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) CEO Wayne Pacelle's political acumen, Newkirk opened a Washington, D.C., office in 2009 to "ensure that animal rights issues are front and center in our nation's capital and that animal rights displays and events will be seen everywhere by Obama administration staffers and members of Congress."
PETA has bought stock in restaurant and food companies that serve and sell meat, and then introduced shareholder resolutions at highly publicized annual meetings requiring animal rights-oriented practices in the way animals are handled and slaughtered. Campaigns have targeted McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Pilgrim's Pride, and KFC, the latter having its retail locations publicly protested over 12,000 times. Some of PETA's current campaigns carry the following labels: Kentucky Fried Cruelty; Bloody Burberry; PetSmart Cruelty; McCruelty— I'm Hating It; Brookstone, A World of Deprivation; and Ringling Bros. Beats Animals. The March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the American Cancer Society have all been repeatedly attacked in flamboyant ways to attract media attention for conducting animal testing to find cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases. Polo, Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, JC Penney, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Zappos, Ann Taylor, and Urban Outfitters all have agreed to stop selling fur products and Petco exotic pets and large birds. Avon, Estee Lauder, Dow Chemical, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Benetton, Gillette, Tonka Toy Company, and others all stopped testing products on animals after consumer boycotts were organized by PETA. Hundreds of fashion shows in the United States and Europe have been disrupted by PETA members throwing red paint on catwalks and models.
PETA's provocative national ad campaign, "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear A Fur" enlisted a broad spectrum of Hollywood entertainers, celebrities, and supermodels posing nude, such as Patti Davis, Steve-O, Pink, Pamela Anderson, Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin, Stella McCartney, Eva Mendes, and Christy Turlington. Similarly, PETA will shamelessly exploit a celebrity's human suffering to further its agenda, as it did when New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani announced he had prostate cancer, ending his campaign for the U.S. Senate. PETA put up billboards picturing Giuliani with a milk mustache over the caption "Got Prostate Cancer."
Not missing a PR opportunity to utilize global climate change as a hook to promote its meatless vegan society message, PETA even attributes the human diet as a contributor, quoting a University of Chicago study: "changing from a meat-based diet to a vegan diet saves the equivalent of 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year! If all Americans cut back on meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would yield the same reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as if everyone in the country switched from driving a Camry to driving a Prius! And vegetables cost a lot less than a new car."
PETA has organized and financed major infiltrations to create videos, and/or copy or steal documents, to stir controversy regarding research testing laboratories that utilize animals, slaughter houses, factory farms, and circuses. In 2007 alone, some 75 PETA infiltrations occurred. PETA's association and collaboration with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), both FBI-listed eco-terrorists, is a matter of record according to the watchdog group, Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). PETA's own tax records confirm providing them funding and support, which PETA has publicly acknowledged according to a CCF web site.
PETA Targets Children
One of PETA's major targets has been influencing and educating children through its Youth Outreach Division and PETA2.com web site with some programs and material designed for children beginning at age 3. PETA's 2009 annual review reports PETA2. com has "over 750,000 subscribers … and receives more than 375,000 visits per month … the largest youth membership of any social-justice organization. Its efforts help ensure that tomorrow's scientists, executives, lawmakers, educators, and parents The Secret World Inside the Animal Rights Agenda — Part Two Fair Chase Magazine | Reprint n 9 will be on the animals' side. … For 245 days in 2009, PETA staffed information booths at 366 concerts, music festivals, and colleges reaching more than 1.1 million young people with literature and videos." Some 36,000 action packets in PETA's McCruelty campaign were sent to young people to pressure McDonald's to force animal welfare improvements at its meat supplier's level, and as a result, PETA's Youth Activist Network grew to over 175,000 subscribers. One PETA Vice President told Fox News Channel that, "Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be." Its child-themed web site, PETAKIDS.com, and children's magazine called, "GRRR!" recommended for ages 5-13, promote PETA's animal liberation agenda, eschews the use of any clothing that includes animal products, promotes a vegetarian diet, and discourages milk and meat consumption because it causes acne, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and strokes. This same web site tells kids tropical rainforests are being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle, and that 55 square feet of rainforest are cut down to produce just one quarter-pound burger. The Kids Guide to Helping Animals booklet was created for kids ages 6-12 to further influence the minds of children with PETA's messages, as was its new TeachKind.org program and web site that provides educators and librarians free humane educational material, lesson plans, books, DVDs, classroom posters, kids' magazines, and step-by-step instructions on addressing animal rights issues in schools, as well as a guest speaker service. PETAKIDS. com even instructs children on how to organize an animal rights club and PETA fundraisers.
PETA has even created its own PETA's Vegan College Cookbook to promote a vegetarian lifestyle, and in 2009 over 422,000 copies of its "Vegetarian Starter Kit" were distributed. Many popular youth-culture celebrities were enlisted to carry PETA's message to children including pop stars Justin Bieber, reality TV star Steve-O, MTV host Layla Kayleigh, Miley Cyrus, and rock bands Dillinger, Escape Plan, Rise Against, and Silverstein. PETA's ad campaign "YourMommy Kills Animals," featuring the cartoon of a mother killing a rabbit with a knife was highly criticized for its message aimed at young people. PETA brags, however, that this message reached over 1.2 million minor children, including 30,000 kids between the ages of 6 and 12, all contacted by email without parental supervision.
Targeting Our Hunting Heritage
Recreational hunting and fishing have long been a target of PETA. In 1992, its members boisterously picketed the annual meeting of the Boone and Crockett Club in Denver, Colorado. Releases from the PETA media center reveal a series of distorted messages they've disseminated on hunting:
To attract more hunters (and their money), federal and state agencies implement programs—often called "wildlife management" or "conservation" programs—that are designed to boost the numbers of "game" species. These programs help to ensure that there are plenty of animals for hunters to kill and, consequently, plenty of revenue from the sale of hunting licenses. … In Alaska, the Department of Fish and Game is trying to increase the number of moose for hunters by "controlling" the wolf and bear populations. … Wolves have been slaughtered in order to "let the moose population rebound and provide a higher harvest for local hunters." … in Canada, hunting has caused bighorn sheep's horn size to fall by 25 percent in the last 40 years. … [PETA] insists that non-hunters be equally represented on the staffs of wildlife agencies.
The PETAKIDS.com web site designed for ages 5-13 sends this message about sport hunting to our kids, under the bold headline "Leave Wildlife Alone."
Chasing defenseless animals around in the woods just so that you can shoot them and mount their heads on the wall is unbelievably cruel. … Hunting, like factory farming, destroys [animal] families and causes pain, trauma, and grief to both the victims and the survivors. Why cause any suffering when we can avoid it? In this day and age, there is simply no reason for anyone to hunt.
One commentator characterized PETA's speciesism position—that all species are equal—as follows: "animal trainers, hunters, fishermen, cattlemen, grocers, and indeed all non-vegetarians are the moral equivalent of cannibals, slave-owners, and death-camp guards." PETA President Ingrid Newkirk insists that the world would be a better place without people: "Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth."
Empty Talk
The biggest hypocrisy of PETA comes from its euthanasia program. During 2009, PETA took in 2,366 dogs and cats for adoption, and killed 2,301 of these. Only one out of 300 animals found adoptive homes. Since 1998, PETA has killed 23,640 dogs and cats—all a matter of public record, which PETA filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. At PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters, there are no open adoption shelter hours. There is, however, a large walk-in freezer purchased in 2002 for $9,370, and a contract with a crematory service to empty the freezer periodically of animal carcasses according to the Center for Consumer Freedom. In 2005, two PETA employees were charged with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty each, after authorities found them dumping the dead bodies of 18 animals they had just picked up from a North Carolina animal shelter into a dumpster. According to the Associated Press, 13 more dead animals were found in a van registered to PETA.
PETA's 2009 annual report and financial statement shows revenues totaling $34.6 million, $5.1 million or 15 percent of which was spent on fundraising. The 2009 statement lists net assets of $17.7 million. Its 300 employees service a membership reportedly in excess of 2 million members. PETA is a major, multi-national business operation focused on its mission of total global animal liberation with rights equal to humans, utilizing outrageous radical tactics. In the opinion of one of the leading investigators and authorities on animal rightists, while HSUS backs away from PETA's vulgar use of nudity, scare tactics and outrageous media antics, HSUS sits in the shadows in complete agreement with that group's goals and lets PETA be the mouthpiece. HSUS lets PETA be the "bad cop" while HSUS assumes the role of "good cop" in an effort to burnish its legitimacy. HSUS plays on its "humane" name to gain public support for the same radical issues, but clearly HSUS and PETA are NOT animal welfare agencies according to the research data collected by one of the leading authorities on global animal rightist activities.
Veganarchism
HSUS and PETA, while the most recognizable animal rightists groups, are shadowed by far more militant organizations that emphasize animal liberation and tactically support what can be termed "veganarchism." These include the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF), both listed by the FBI as eco-terrorists here and abroad, with 150 ongoing, open investigations. These two groups are responsible for more than 600 crimes since 1996, causing more than $43 million in damages estimated by the FBI. Their anarchism led to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act being adopted by Congress in 1992. ALF is active in 38 countries globally. These two groups along with the British-based anti-hunting guerrilla group called the Band of Mercy are known for attacking hunters' vehicles by slashing tires, breaking windows, and harassing hunting parties by trailing them afield with noise makers and banging pots and pans, and putting down false scent trails to distract hunting dogs.
An incendiary firebomb at a Michigan State University (MSU) animal research testing lab was detonated, causing multimillion dollar damages in 1992 by ALF activist Rod Coronado, who was convicted of arson and sent to jail. Documents removed from MSU and a videotape of the perpetrator disguised in a ski mask were sent by Coronado to a PETA employee. According to the book Eco-Terrorism, PETA reportedly paid $45,000 to Coronado for his legal expenses, and loaned his father another $25,000. Similarly, according to two reports, PETA contributed $27,000 to the legal defense fund of Robert Troen for burglary and arson at the University of Oregon in 1986. Three years later in 1989, PETA informed its members of the payment. PETA's 1988 IRS 990 tax form disclosed that PETA contributed $7,500 to the legal defense of Fran Stephanie Trutt, prosecuted for the attempted murder of the president of a medical laboratory and convicted of possessing pipe bombs. Josh Harper was convicted of attacking Native Americans on a whale hunt using smoke bombs, flares, and chemical fire extinguishers, received $5,000 from PETA. All of these payments were made from PETA's tax-exempt funds. PETA's President Newkirk is quoted by the Center for Consumer Freedom as saying "I will be the last person to condemn ALF," and in another interview she said "I Fair Chase Magazine | Reprint n 11 find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match."
While this column was being written, a radical animal rights terrorist entered the lobby of the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, and took hostages before he was killed by police. He presented the Discovery Channel a manifesto of demands centering on stopping the growth of the "filthy human population" at the expense of "wildlife and forest creatures," strangely echoing PETA's President Newkirk's early remarks about population growth being "the biggest blight on the face of the earth."
Animal rights militants and eco-terrorists operating under the name Animal Liberation Brigade targeted the animal testing laboratory Huntington Life Sciences and the California National Primate Research Center with firebombs and pipe bombs. Companies doing business with Huntington have also been targeted with bombings and incendiary devices, including Shaklee, Inc., Chiron Corporation and several UCLA animal research scientists. At sea, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claims credit for the sinking of 10 Icelandic whaling ships, boarding whaling vessels at sea, ramming fishing vessels, seizure and destruction of drift nets, disorienting whalers with laser devices, throwing bottles of foul-smelling butyric acid onto the decks of fishing vessels, and the interdiction of Canadian seal hunts. Greenpeace follows Sea Shepherd tactically to disrupt whaling and other fishing vessels, destroying drift nets, etc.
Targeting Lawyers and Doctors
The legal profession has of course taken its place at the animal rights roundtable. Harvard Law School began teaching an animal rights course in 2000, the first of its kind in the nation, while the Harvard Divinity School offered a course titled, "Religion and Animals." Today 120 of the 196 American law schools and eight Canadian law schools offer at least one animal rights course, and some an entire concentration. Animal rights law committees now exist in the American Bar Association and many state bar associations. HSUS and its Humane Society University provides training seminars for criminal prosecutors on investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty cases, as does the National Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. HSUS also provides a full staff of 30 well-trained attorneys in their Animal Protection Litigation Section to do legal research, writing and trial preparation, amicus assistance, expert witness advice and testimony, species-specific veterinarians, animal scientists and behaviorists, psychologists, and expert investigators.
Internationally, Austria's Supreme Court has considered the rights of a 25-yearold chimpanzee to own property donated to it by benefactors, and their decision recognizing such rights is now on appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The Spanish legislature, moreover, voted in 2008 to consider extending limited rights to nonhuman primates to be protected from use in medical experimentation or circuses. The Spanish Parliament's Environment Committee is weighing the proposal. Switzerland recognized animals as "beings," not "things," in 1992, and in 2002, the protection of animals was added to the German Constitution. The state of Israel has banned animal dissections in elementary and secondary schools and performances by trained animals in circuses. A host of animal defense and litigation NGOs have been established, moreover placing additional support and ostensible legitimacy behind animal issues. These include the Animal Law Coalition, International Society for Animal Rights, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund (formerly called Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund), Natural Resources Defense Council, Animal Advocates, In Defense of Animals, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, etc.
Recognized senior legal scholar Cass Sunstein, President Obama's regulations czar, famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, and the President's confidant and former Harvard Law Professor, Laurence Tribe, who Obama appointed Senior Counselor for Access to Justice in the Department of Justice, all support granting animals the legal right to sue. As legal scholar Michael Socarras told the Association of American Medical Colleges: "There is a very important shift under way in the manner in which many people in law schools and in the legal profession think about animals. This shift has not yet reached popular opinion. However, in [the U.S.], social change has and can occur through the courts, which in many instances do not operate as a democratic institution. Therefore, the evolution in elite legal opinion is extremely significant…"
Doctors reportedly have also taken a seat at the animal rights roundtable in the form of Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM, a PETA front group), but only 5 percent of its supposed membership are physicians. The mission of the organization, formed in 1985, is to remove meat, milk, eggs, and seafood from the American diet, and eliminate the use of animals in scientific research. The American Medical Association (AMA) censured them and called the group "a fringe organization" that uses "unethical tactics" and is "interested in perverting medical science." In responding to PCMA's attempt to start a milk panic scare campaign, the AMA said, "The AMA finds the recommendation of PCRM irresponsible and potentially dangerous to the health and welfare of Americans. [PCMA is] blatantly misleading Americans on a health matter and concealing its true purpose as an animal 'rights' organization."
The End Game
As you might now appreciate, an animal's right to "personhood" versus being owned "property," and the legal right and standing to sue to protect their interests, is no longer a fringe issue in American society. It's the end game of the animal rights movement. The brave new utopian world of the animal rightists and liberationists is a pet less, meatless society, one of vegetarianism, a lifestyle, and veganism, which is a political statement. High-end urban grocery stores already have dedicated vegan food products, aisles or sections. Clothing and accessories made of animal hides or products such as leather shoes, belts, handbags, coats, luggage, wool suits, silk scarves, ties, and dresses, etc., would be eliminated, as some items already have been by major retailers, as would products known to contain animal byproducts or goods containing ingredients that have been tested on animals. "Puppy mills" supplying dogs for pet stores would be outlawed, but so would legitimate purebred breeders because of deceptive language slipped into anti-dog legislation by animal rightists making it applicable to any kennels producing a defined but limited number of puppies per year. Fur farms would be outlawed, as would factory farming of cattle, pigs, chicken, and fish, and any form of biomedical research, aerospace or military exercises that utilize laboratory animals for toxicity testing, basic or applied research, teaching, education or training, or exhibition. Zoos, circuses, aquariums and, rodeos would also be eliminated. At the extreme of this utopian world, your pet would have the right to life, the protection of its individual liberty, personal safety, and the right to claim/own property, if companion and service animals were even permitted.
Hunting, trapping, and fishing would be illegal within the animal rightists' agenda. HSUS' President Wayne Pacelle is on record with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Montana) as saying, "Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as cock fighting and dog fighting." HSUS' own web site in 2003 stated, "Sport hunting—the killing of wild animals as recreation—is fundamentally at odds with the values of a humane, just, and caring society."
The Sporting World's Watch Dogs
While most of the sporting world has been focused on the highly visible anti-hunting movement led by PETA and HSUS among others, one organization has identified the animal rightists and liberationists and the hidden threat they pose to the hunting and fishing world, whose pushback and vigilance has been phenomenal. That group is the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (USSA) in Columbus, Ohio, its U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance Foundation, and its U.S. Sportsmen's Legal Defense Fund. Begun in 1977 as the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America, and joined by the Wildlife Conservation Fund of America, USSA has led the way in defeating ballot and other anti-hunting initiatives in state after state, Washington, D.C., and courtrooms across the country. U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance staff has connected the dots nationally and globally by analyzing animal rightists' tax forms, who they hire, the worldwide organizations that are affiliated, where they get their money and how they spend it, the legislation they support and the lawsuits they file, the information on their web sites, their pitch to be vegan, what they try to teach our children on their web sites, etc. If you don't do that analysis, you can't know HSUS or PETA. That is why U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance has become one of the sportsmen's prime watchdogs on the activities of HSUS and PETA. USSA's web site, www.ussportsmen.org, is a reliable and highly informative source of information on animal rightists' activities; its news archives provides a rich, historical yearby- year chronology of USSA's activities to protect the sportsmen's community of interests. U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance President Bud Pidgeon has said, "The HSUS is playing up a mainstream reputation in hopes of becoming the primary mouthpiece for the animal rights movement."
Two other notable groups that provide valuable oversight and factual information on animal rightists are the National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA) www.naiaonline.org, and the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), www.consumerfreedom. com. NAIA is an affiliation of professionals who live and work with animals, which include pet owners and clubs, circus trainers, hunters, fisherman, wildlife biologists, rescue groups, breeders, trainers, veterinarians, research scientists, etc. NAIA's mission is to promote animal husbandry's best practices and responsible breeding, strengthening the human-animal bond, and protecting the rights of responsible animal owners. The latter group, CCF, is a controversial industry-supported (restaurant and food companies) research and lobby organization providing reliable research data on animal rightists. Several other web sites that really bring clarity to the hidden agenda cloaked in the clandestine, covert and murky worlds of HSUS, PETA, and their related groups are the following: www.humanewatch. org; www.huntersagainstpeta.com; www.animalscam.com; www.petakillsanimals. com; www.sfgate.com; www.activistcash. com; www.firstthings.com; www.pajamasmedia. com, and www.geari.org.
Where Animals Rights Stands Now
Professor David Walls at Sonoma State University in 2008 succinctly characterized the current state of the animal rights movement as follows:
The animal rights movement is still in an early stage of development. Many of the groups begun since the 1950s are in their first generation of leadership and manifest "founder's syndrome" to one extent or another. Competition is still heavy for available issue niches on animal experimentation, farm animals, hunting, zoos and circuses, fur, and animal testing. Questions of "purity" divide animal activists, particularly over whether animal welfare and animal rights are complementary or contradictory. Must a true friend of animals be a vegetarian, or further, a vegan who eats no animal products? Can animal rights groups make alliances with mainstream conservation organizations who condone hunting (or at least do not officially oppose it)? Tom Regan [one group's philosophical and puritanical high priests] upholds animal rights fundamentalism, a program of nothing less than a complete abolition of all exploitation of animals for human purposes. Others, including PETA's Ingrid Newkirk, argue that cooperation with all allies issue by issue is the only path to victories for animals. However impractical, utopian, or just plain wrongheaded many of their goals may appear to the general public— and to many participants in other movements—animal rights advocates have come a long way in the past decade, and are no longer out beyond the fringe.
All of the animal rightists groups, notwithstanding their separate niches, work together openly and covertly and play off each other's tactics and agendas. Central, however, to their individual agendas is the establishment of animal rights globally and the creation of a vegan society, which is a political initiative, with some far-left extremists bent on eco-terrorism and a "veganarchism jihad." This societal movement is no longer in the shadows. HSUS and PETA are now 56 and 30 years old respectively, with a combined membership and constituency of 13.5 million people, total revenues in 2009 of $161.3 million, and net assets of $209.6 million. This is big business. The animal rights movement is now over 50 years old, and its educational influences and indoctrination of children have gone on for five decades. Generations have been subject to this influence, and many children have grown up to become parents themselves with an animal rights education and orientation, and the referenced numbers reflect this. We sportsmen have witnessed the rhetoric and tactics of anti-hunters, but the animal rightists bring a whole new threat not just to our sport, but to the very way we live and function in society. To quote PETA's own web site: "Animal rights is not just a philosophy— it's a social movement that challenges society's traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use." Twenty years ago, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle said, "We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States. We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state." True to his word, Pacelle has done exactly this for the last 20 years.
What Can We Do?
How does our sporting community address the daunting challenge the animal rights movement poses when we recognize that its two leading groups alone represent 13.5 million people, have combined annual revenues of $161.3 million, net assets of $209.6 million, and have been cunningly planning and executing their global attack on society for over 50 years? The strongest weapons sportsmen have to thwart animal rightists are the facts and truth. And vigilance in clearly communicating these is our first collective defense to stop the unsuspecting public's flow of money into behemoth animal rights organizations. We must let the politicians at the local and national level know the truth on animal issues so they are not guilelessly misled. Moreover, the second strongest weapon sportsmen have is diligently working together as a united force and community, setting our individual ideological agendas aside that persistently get in the way, stop fighting, competing, and criticizing each other, and support offensive groups like the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance and educating the constituency of our national sporting groups on the threat the animal rightists' agendas present.
The American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) is now 11 years old and its combined constituency is 7 million sportsmen. We have a base to start with, and AWCP, now a confederation of 47 national organizations, must exercise leadership. Moreover, we must unite in this offense with our angler counterparts whose constituency is far greater than ours. We are both under attack by animal rightists.
Hunters and anglers face attacks based primarily on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The animal rightists use these federal statutes to abusively attack our sporting community. The key to a united sportsmen's approach is to design a plan to diffuse the animal rightist's agenda that's been 50 years in its consolidation, and be as insidious, calculating and stealthy as they've been. We've got to dilute their funding base of unsuspecting donors with facts and truth. As discussed in Part 1 of this column, animal rightists and environmental activists routinely sue the federal government and recover their litigation costs and attorneys' fees utilizing the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA, 1980), the Judgment Fund (1956), and Section 11(g)(4) of the Endangered Species Act (1973), all funded from the U.S. Treasury, i.e. by unsuspecting taxpayers. During the last decade alone, $36 million has been paid out to just nine activist groups in more than 3,300 lawsuits. HSUS alone has been a plaintiff in 88 federal district lawsuits since 1988, recovering at least $2.6 million in attorneys' fees and costs.
Cutting off these litigation subsidies via amendments to the EAJA, the Judgment Fund and Section 11(g)(4) of the ESA, thus thwarting animal rightists' and environmental activists' repeated litigation at taxpayers' expense for their revolving, round-robin legal expenses must become the leading goal for the sportsmen's community. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) introduced legislation this past March (H.R. 4717), as did Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) (S.3122), with 36 bipartisan members of Congress co-sponsoring the bills, to amend EAJA, for which we sportsmen must rally to secure Congressional enactment. However, both of these bills only require that the Department of Justice annually report what litigation costs have been paid out under EAJA, which has become a big secret since the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The pending legislation must be expanded to include two important amendments 1) require disclosure of litigation payments made under the Judgment Fund and ESA, which has been a closely guarded secret; and 2) restrict payments to nonprofit litigants that can afford to pay their own attorneys' fees and expenses like HSUS and PETA.
Litigation reimbursement expenses were intended by Congress to afford equal access to justice for indigents and nonprofit groups that couldn't afford high-priced lawyers and the burden of prolonged expensive litigation, not for organizations like HSUS and PETA that have combined net assets of $209.6 million and cash balances in excess of $44.5 million. Contrary and outrageous as it may seem, under EAJA, a "for profit" company with a net worth over $7 million is ineligible to recover attorneys' fees and costs, yet any "nonprofit" is eligible to recover legal fees and costs regardless of its net worth. How blatant is that inequity! But it doesn't stop there. Guess who President Obama appointed as his "Senior Counselor for Access to Justice at the Department of Justice? As referenced earlier, one of his former Harvard law professors and confidant, Laurence Tribe, a recognized animal rights advocate.
Changing the laws to cut off reimbursement of litigation costs to "nonprofit" animal rightists and environmental activist organizations that can afford to pay their own attorney fees and costs will be challenging, and the organized pushback as you might appreciate will be huge. It will require the sporting community to organize a united focus on this issue, and a major national campaign to secure Congressional approval. The campaign will take time, but sportsmen have got to start laying the pipe and building the foundation to achieve Congressional approval and avoid a White House veto. That national campaign can be the very vehicle sportsmen can use to educate the taxpayers of America on the best-kept, dirty little secret the rightists and enviros trade on to maintain their hidden, revolving legal expense fund, and to perennially generate donations from the unsuspecting, unknowing public supporting their litigation cause-based fundraising appeals.
The reason this issue hasn't seen daylight is because the massive reimbursements for litigation costs have not been publicly disclosed by the federal government, and they are individually approved by the judges in the federal district courts hearing the cases, hence spread across 50 states and buried in federal court records. Moreover, the three laws that authorize these reimbursements are very complex, somewhat arcane, and give the presiding federal judges virtually unlimited discretion without any oversight in awarding reimbursement for attorneys' fees and litigation costs. A national campaign to amend the law and end this abuse will showcase the secret weapon hidden by the rightists and enviros which they've run rampant with for over four decades. To disable the animal rightists and environmental activist's abusive litigation vehicles, sportsmen must follow their money trail, and cut it off!
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Reprinted from the Fall 2010 issue of Fair Chase: The Official Publication of the Boone and Crockett Club - www.booneandcrockettclub.com |
