Were Donor Millions Squandered in “Groundless” Lawsuit?
Donors to animal rights organizations like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) need to think hard about how their charitable dollars can best be spent to improve the welfare of animals. Recent events suggest that local animal welfare shelters might put those dollars to better use for animals than does the HSUS and their cohorts. Driven by the fanatical certainty of their ideology, HSUS and others risked ethical misconduct and wound up losing millions of dollars in a frivolous and groundless lawsuit.
HSUS vs. Circus
A lawsuit brought in 2000 by HSUS and other animal rights organizations against Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus turned out to be so tainted that twenty-five million dollars have been paid by the plaintiffs to the circus owners in settlements. In 2012 the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) paid $9.3 million in a settlement for its part in the false claims made. As the lawsuit fell apart, other animal rights groups abandoned the action.
In May of this year, HSUS and others paid another $15.7 million in settlement fees as part of the same failed lawsuit, bluntly described by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia as “groundless and unreasonable from its inception.”
HSUS Sues Circus; Loses Big-Time
After fourteen years of litigation, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and related animal rights groups settled a legal battle that they started against the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus by agreeing to pay almost sixteen million dollars after a Federal Court determined that their case was “groundless […]
Congress Bans Horse Slaughter…Again
The Congress passed, and the President signed the new budget, effectively banning horse slaughter once again by cutting funding for USDA inspections at horse slaughter facilities. Congress did this very same thing in 2006, an action which effectively closed all horse processing plants in the country. Much has happened between then and now. In 2011, […]
Not Stupid; Just Misled
A recent poll by the Opinion Research Corporation revealed that seventy-one percent of Americans believe that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an umbrella organization for local humane societies across the country. They’re wrong.
Further, sixty-eight percent believe that donations made to HSUS help to fund these humane shelters. They’re ninety-nine percent wrong.
HSUS, according to IRS filings, gives one percent of their budget to animal shelters, according to JoAnn Alumbaugh’s article in Dairy Herd Network.
Are all these people wrong because they are stupid, or are they being misled?
Horse Slaughter Plants “Expected” to Open in NM, MO
Horse slaughter plants in New Mexico and Missouri expect to resume processing again in the U.S. in a matter of days. “Expect” is the operating word in this ongoing battle between the opposing views. Horse slaughter plants expected to open back in July of this year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cleared the […]
Temporary Injunction Delays Resumption of Horse Slaughter
On Monday, November 4, a federal appeals court granted an emergency request by animal rights groups to temporarily block the expected reopening of horse slaughter plants in the U.S. After eleven years, horse slaughter was expected to resume as early as this week after a U.S. District judge in New Mexico last Friday threw out […]
HSUS Steps in Where Hunters Refuse to Tread
In the wake of a disgusting poaching incident in which a mountain lion was killed and brutally mutilated, the California Department of Fish and Game organized the Cal-TIP program which offers financial rewards to people who turn in poachers or polluters. Cal-TIP funded the program with $2,500.
Some California hunters are upset by the fact that Cal-TIP accepted a matching funding donation from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). (See story.) I have a different take on this story. I would ask, why didn’t we hunters beat HSUS to the punch?
Just Be Honest
According to a recent national poll, seventy-one percent of Americans believe that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an umbrella organization of their local pet shelters. This, according to an article by Rick Berman of the Center for Consumer Freedom published in MyCentralJersey.com, a Gannett Company publication.
HSUS is not, in fact, associated with your local humane shelter. But certainly due in part to this misunderstanding, HSUS raised $131 million last year. I’m not about to debate here the merits or shortcomings of HSUS. That has been done, some would say, ad nauseum. But I do fault HSUS for not setting the record straight.
Sportsmen Win Court Battle over Hunting on Public Lands
A long courtroom battle to stop hunting on sixty wildlife refuges was decided by a federal judge in favor of sportsmen. The case started with a lawsuit brought in 2003 by the Fund for Animals, which later merged with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The judge’s decision was rendered in April, and […]
Six US Congressmen Seek Probe of HSUS Tax Status
Six Republican members of Congress have written to Inspector General Eric Thorson claiming that the level of lobbying activity conducted by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is incompatible with HSUS’s 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. Previous letters written to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner have been unproductive. […]