Groups Tag Team Against Agriculture
By Chris Fennewald, Editor, MFB Publications

The radical group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants America to be vegan and has a powerful partner in its mission, according to David Martosko, Director of Research for the non-profit Center for Consumer Freedom. He says PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) are playing a tag match in efforts to stop livestock production.

Martosko spoke to Missouri Farm Bureau members in Washington, D.C., during the MFB legislative trip in March. He is responsible for the Web site humanewatch.org which has exposed HSUS’s deceptive fund raising practices and its connections with PETA.

According to Martosko, the primary job of PETA today is to make the HSUS seem reasonable by comparison. "PETA will boycott, picket or hassle the president of a company. Then, three days later, HSUS makes a phone call saying work with us, we are kinder and gentler. Usually, it works, but HSUS is not an animal welfare group, it is an animal rights group," he says.

^{Pictured:David Martosko}

What is the difference? Plenty. Martosko told Farm Bureau members the animal rights position is that you have no right to eat a steak, milk a cow or drink the milk, use lab rats to cure cancer, hunt, fish or enslave an animal as a pet.

He says 99 percent of Americans are animal welfare proponents that agree using animals for food, clothing and research is necessary as long as animals are treated humanely.

Those same Americans who believe in animal welfare donate to HSUS believing the group maintains animal shelters.

A recent poll shows people are misled. Seventy-one percent of Americans questioned in the poll wrongly believe the HSUS is an "umbrella group" for America’s local humane societies.

Sixty-three percent incorrectly think their local "humane society" is affiliated with HSUS. And, 59 percent falsely believe HSUS "contributes most of its money" to local organizations that care for cats and dogs.

The poll released in March sampled the opinions of 1,008 Americans and was commissioned by the Center for Consumer Freedom.

"These numbers indicate Americans don’t really know what the Humane Society of the United States is all about," said Martosko. "HSUS intentionally uses those sad dogs and cats in its TV infomercials as props in an animal rights fund raising shell game. Meanwhile, thousands of American pet shelters are underfunded and struggling."

According to the federal income tax return filed by HSUS for the tax year 2008, less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the organization’s budget consisted of grants to hands-on pet shelters. HSUS does not run a single shelter for dogs or cats anywhere, and it is not affiliated with any local "humane society" organizations.

The donated funds pay for a lobbying machine that attacks animal agriculture and promotes a vegan lifestyle.

HSUS has come to Missouri circulating an initiative petition to place controls on dog breeders. They want the issue on the November ballot. HSUS is using the term "puppy mill" which Martosko describes as a pejorative similar to the term "factory farm." Both are inaccurate terms that project a negative perception. In fact, the proposed ballot language has been challenged in court.

"According to HSUS, if you have more than 50 cows, you are a factory farm," says Martosko. "You may not think you run a puppy mill, but if you have more than 10 animals that produce litters, HSUS says you operate a puppy mill.

"I’ve seen large pet breeding operations that are wonderfully operated and I’ve seen small ones that are horrible. Size is not a factor, it is the conditions that matter."

A real solution is providing more funding to the Missouri Department of Agriculture to hire inspectors that check licensed dog breeders and shut down unlicensed breeders. Laws to enforce are already in place. HSUS’s ballot initiative does nothing to address enforcement problems.

Martosko and other opponents of the measure agree the ballot initiative is less about dogs for HSUS and more about raising money.

"If they can limit the number of animals a pet breeder can breed, they can limit the number of registered Holsteins someone can breed or the number of chickens someone can hatch in a hatchery," says Martosko.

Expect less production and higher food prices if that happens. Of course, that puts low-income families on a vegan diet, which is just fine with these animal rights groups.