Atlanta Investigation Uncovers Deceptive 'Humane Society' Agenda

May 15, 2009

ABC News in Atlanta is taking a cue from us and following the money donated to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). And the results aren’t pretty. The animal rights industry leader with the misleading name gives less than 4 cents of every dollar of its budget to support local animal shelters. The rest of the money, as WSB-TV Channel 2 News confirmed? It funds the group’s activist projects and lobbying for vegetarian-minded legislation.

Reporter Amanda Rosseter spoke with staff members from Atlanta-area animal shelters. She discovered that while HSUS talks a big game about stopping puppy mills, the heavy lifting required to care for rescued puppies falls on the shoulders of local humane societies – most of whom see nary a cent from HSUS to support their work.

Rosseter also attended a meeting of the local HSUS chapter to see for herself what was discussed. The agenda was just as we’d expect:

The two hour discussion was about activist plans and lobbying. The Georgia director for the HSUS agrees that's mostly what she does.

“I think that in all of our literature, it is very explicit as to what our campaigns are and what we are doing,” said Cheryl McAuliffe, Georgia Director for HSUS. “We help where we can and focus on our programs, which are national and international.”

McAuliffe said there are just too many local shelters to help.

“I always tell people, contribute to your local shelter first,” said McAuliffe.

When asked how much her budget is for the state of Georgia, McAuliffe said she didn't have a budget and neither did other states. McAuliffe said all money is controlled from headquarters in Washington, D.C.

(Click here to watch the whole TV segment.)

McAuliffe says donors should give directly to their local shelters first – and we totally agree. In fact, our own polling shows that many donors who give money to a national group with “Humane Society” in its name think their gifts are directly helping rescued pets. But with HSUS, that isn’t the case.

HSUS has a lengthy track record of raising money for one cause and spending it on unrelated programs. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, HSUS used the high-profile disaster to raise a reported $34 million to reunite lost pets with their owners. Yet WSB-TV reported last night that less than $7 million of that money was actually spent on Katrina-related activities. 

The sad truth for needy pets is that HSUS is far more interested in using its bloated budget to go after meat and dairy producers; ban the use of animals in biomedical research labs; blast pet breeding, zoos, and circus acts that involve animals; and denigrate hunters as bloodthirsty lunatics. Every year HSUS spends more than $20 million on salaries and $2 million on travel expenses, just to keep its agenda fed.

Despite the words "humane society" on its letterhead, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with your local animal shelter.  Despite the omnipresent dogs and cats in its frundreasing materials, it's not an organization that runs spay/neuter programs or takes in stray, neglected, and abused pets.  And despite the commone image of animal protection agencies as cash-strapped organizations dedicated to animal welfare, HSUS has become the wealthiest animal rights organization on earth.

HSUS is big, rich, and powerful, a “humane society” in name only. And while most local animal shelters are under-funded and unsung, HSUS has accumulated $113 million in assets and built a recognizable brand by capitalizing on the confusion its very name provokes. This misdirection results in an irony of which most animal lovers are unaware: HSUS raises enough money to finance animal shelters in every single state, with money to spare, yet it doesn’t operate a single one anywhere.

Instead, HSUS spends millions on programs that seek to economically cripple meat and dairy producers; eliminate the use of animals in biomedical research labs; phase out pet breeding, zoos, and circus animal acts; and demonize hunters as crazed lunatics. HSUS spends $2 million each year on travel expenses alone, just keeping its multi-national agenda going.

HSUS president Wayne Pacelle described some of his goals in 2004 for The Washington Post: “We will see the end of wild animals in circus acts … [and we’re] phasing out animals used in research. Hunting? I think you will see a steady decline in numbers.” More recently, in a June 2005 interview, Pacelle told Satya magazine that HSUS is working on “a guide to vegetarian eating, to really make the case for it.” A strict vegan himself, Pacelle added: “Reducing meat consumption can be a tremendous benefit to animals.”

Shortly after Pacelle joined HSUS in 1994, he told Animal People (an inside-the-movement watchdog newspaper) that his goal was to build “a National Rifle Association of the animal rights movement.” And now, as the organization’s leader, he’s in a position to back up his rhetoric with action. In 2005 Pacelle announced the formation of a new “Animal Protection Litigation Section” within HSUS, dedicated to “the process of researching, preparing, and prosecuting animal protection lawsuits in state and federal court.”

HSUS’s current goals have little to do with animal shelters. The group has taken aim at the traditional morning meal of bacon and eggs with a tasteless “Breakfast of Cruelty” campaign. Its newspaper op-eds demand that consumers “help make this a more humane world [by] reducing our consumption of meat and egg products.” Since its inception, HSUS has tried to limit the choices of American consumers, opposing dog breeding, conventional livestock and poultry farming, rodeos, circuses, horse racing, marine aquariums, and fur trapping.....  Much more here.

Yesterday afternoon the Associated Press broke some peculiar news about the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS): The disingenuously named animal rights group has forged an alliance with disgraced NFL quarterback Michael Vick. Given the group’s well-publicized campaigns against dogfighting (a rare issue on which we wholeheartedly agree with the anti-meat giant), HSUS’s sudden change of heart about the convicted dog abuser may come as a surprise. It shouldn’t. Because as we’re telling the media today, HSUS has a history of tapping into the Michael Vick case for its own gain.

Let’s recap: Vick was indicted for his dogfighting operation on July 17, 2008. Less than twenty-four hours later, HSUS was raising money on the promise that funds would be used to “care for” Vick’s dogs. Then The New York Times reported that the group had absolutely nothing to do with “caring for” the animals. Again, no surprise -- HSUS doesn't operate a single pet shelter anywhere in America.

In fact, HSUS President Wayne Pacelle told the Times he had no idea who rescued the dogs, or where they were. But whoever had them, Pacelle advised, ought to kill them.

We publicized this deception, and HSUS quietly altered its fundraising pitch.

Fast-forward to this week. Now that most of Vick’s dogs are being rehabilitated (without the help or blessing of HSUS), the group is welcoming their oppressor with open arms, fresh from the slammer.

Why?

Pacelle says it's because Vick can use his influence to tell kids that dogfighting is uncool. But here’s our guess: HSUS knows that most Americans are dog lovers. And Vick’s early release from federal prison is a great opportunity to turn that sympathy into donations for its anti-meat, anti-dairy, and anti-medical-research campaigns. Again.

Animal advocates everywhere should demand that HSUS return the money it raised on the false promise that it would do something distinctly humane. Is that too much to ask from a "humane society"?

You know, I’d love to believe that Obama is cool with guns and hunting, but when the nation’s largest and most radical group that wants to ban hunting thinks he’s peachy, it makes this middle-aged redneck think that maybe Barack is full of B’crap and his “pro gun/hunting” spiel is just another con job spun by the King of Obfuscation. But that’s just me.

This past week Obama added to his rogue gallery of support groups another radical band of anti-American spirit lunatics. No, I’m not talking about an additional endorsement by a new terrorist group or Black Muslim faction, or pro-abortion loon, or another communist cabal, or an extra Castro/Chavez-like dictator but rather the Humane Society (HSUS).

Y’know, opposites might attract in love, according to Paula Abdul (and who are we to question her wisdom?), but that’s not true in elections. Special interest axe-grinders look for sympathetic co-belligerents in their cause, and the Human Society found one in Obama and not in McCain/Palin, chiefly because Sarah puts the bam in Bambi and McCain favors fishing. I can’t live without either.

FYI to all those not in the know: The Humane Society is not a placid gaggle of folks who are just about rescuing flea-bitten puppies and kitties and then cutting their balls off. This society is also rabidly anti-hunting. Yep, if these now official bedfellows of Barack had it their way, hunting—like OJ’s career—would be a thing of the past.

Check out these sentiments from HSUS’s moist-eyed president Wayne Pacelle . . .

“If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.” – as quoted by the Associated Press in Impassioned Agitator, December 30, 1991

“Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as cock fighting and dog fighting. Our opponents say hunting is a tradition. We say traditions can change.” – Bozeman Daily Chronicle, October 8, 1991

According to www.NRA.org,

“Pacelle knows that he has a proven friend in Obama after his support of Senator Ted Kennedy's legislation that would have banned virtually all rifle ammunition used by America's hunters. If successful, the legislation would have ended the vast majority of all hunting – a fact not lost on HSUS.

In Congress and state legislatures and city councils around the country, HSUS lobbies to defeat every measure that expands hunting opportunities for the country's sportsmen. It says it opposes only the most “barbaric and inhumane” hunting practices. What it doesn't say publicly is that HSUS believes that all sport hunting is ‘”barbaric and inhumane.”

There's never been a hunting ban or restriction that HSUS hasn't actively supported. It routinely lobbies to:

- Prohibit the use of traditional lead bullets and shot for all hunting;

- Prohibit urban and suburban archery deer hunting programs;

- Prohibit bear hunting in a number of states including New Jersey, Colorado and Alaska;

- Retain Sunday hunting bans in states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia;

- Ban the hunting of doves, the most widely hunted game bird in America; and

- Ensure that emotion, not science, dictates wildlife management practices

In addition to its anti-hunting efforts in the public policy realm, HSUS uses its enormous financial resources to regularly file lawsuits to stop hunting and the scientific wildlife management practices that recognize hunting as an essential tool. A recent example of this came when HSUS filed lawsuits that successfully closed millions of acres of wildlife refuges to hunting. This is despite the fact that Congress has determined that hunting is one of the traditional activities that should specifically be encouraged in refuges.”

Y’know, there’s a bazillion reasons, give or take, why I don’t like the Jobama ticket and a few reasons why I don’t like McCain. But as a long time hunter and fisherman, I have to say that a politician who’s in the tank with and receives cash from anti-hunters and is presumably expected to give them a big back scratch if elected is officially on my pro-hunting/pro-gun kiss my backside stink list. And . . . drum roll please . . . this time around, that would be Barack Obama. Yep, McCain gets my McNod.

And lastly to all the sportsmen and gun owners who still get giddy about Barack, you need to drink a café Cubana and wake the “H” up. Take a long, hard look at his true voting record and his anti-hunting buddies who think the world of him and then ask yourself, “self, are you insane?!?”

I’ve got to run now and finish prepping for my aoudad sheep, pronghorn antelope and wild boar hunt this week on my good buddy Bob’s 18,000 acre ranch in the wilds of West Texas. We will dedicate the harvesting of all the mature trophy animals to the Humane Society, PETA and their bent frame followers.

Additionally, we will toast these morons as we eat our prey’s backstraps under the big sky and donate the rest of the juicy meat to charity so that others, who currently can’t hunt (yet), can enjoy the high protein, low fat spoils of our sport.

God bless the hunter and hunting, and I hope to see all my pro-hunting and pro-gun brothers and sisters turn out in record numbers at the polls November 4th for McCain and Palin. Vote your gun, boys and girls, you might need it one day—and not just for venison.

Rush Limbaugh's HSUS promos make sportsmen howl

America's top conservative talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, has stunned many of his fans by recording two commercials for the Humane Society of the United States. One spot is about opposing dogfighting and the other is about animals and faith.

AP Photo

A year ago Limbaugh was assailing the liberal agenda and its proponents, now the popular conservative pundit has turned 180 degrees and is lending his support to the biggest animal rights group in the U.S., the HSUS, which has a long-standing history of assaulting hunting, fishing, and trapping rights.

The U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (USSA) is spearheading an effort calling on American sportsmen and women to ask Limbaugh to disassociate himself from the Humane Society. The USSA CEO and President Bud Pidgeon has sent Limbaugh a letter to shed light on HSUS' true agenda and urges Limbaugh to disassociate himself from the group. The letter, signed by Pidgeon, details why the HSUS is the top opponent of sportsman rights:

"... every major piece of legislation, lawsuit or ballot issue that would restrict the rights of Americans to hunt originated with HSUS. This includes bankrolling ballot issues to ban the hunting of America's #1 game bird, the mourning dove, lobbying legislation to ban the only effective hunting methods to control black bear numbers, opposition to hunting on Sundays, and opposition to allowing parents the ability to choose at what age their sons and daughters are permitted to begin hunting and much, much more."

"The HSUS ... uses seemingly harmless campaigns like the ones endorsed by Mr. Limbaugh to raise funds for the organization to advance its controversial mission. It is our hope that once Mr. Limbaugh hears from American sportsmen and women he will understand how his endorsement aids HSUS in its quest to to destroy American freedoms such as hunting, fishing and trapping," says Pidgeon.

The Humane Society calls itself "the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization — backed by 10 million Americans, or one in every 30. Established in 1954, the HSUS seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals — a world that will also benefit people."

Indeed, they have a war chest of at least $133 million, and are actively trying to be the umbrella organization for all animal rights groups in the U.S. — "the National Rifle Association of the animal rights movement" — according to HSUS President Wayne Pacelle.

The HSUS position statement for its "Wildlife Abuse" campaign says its goal is "Ending the killing of animals for trophies and pleasure." Stopping "captive hunts, poaching, contest kills, pheasant stocking and bear hunting" are among its highest priorities. It considers these activities "unsporting hunting practices."

OK, as I understand the definition of "sport," it implies that one derives pleasure and satisfaction from the act. From the HSUS position statements it seems that one can hunt and fish wild animals for food, but not enjoy it. Ah, the guilty conscience! Never fear, HSUS is promoting a vegetarian agenda to sooth that guilty knot in the stomach.

In 2004, HSUS President Wayne Pacelle told The Washington Post: "Hunting? I think you will see a steady decline in numbers." In earlier news interviews, Pacelle has said that it is OK to use misinformation about hunting to build opposition.

According to the National Animal Interest Alliance, the HSUS distorts many animal welfare issues and is dead set against programs like Campfire in Africa, which utilizes sport hunting to pump money for conservation into the local economies.

HSUS also opposes fishing on the grounds that it causes pain to the fish.

The word "humane" brings up images of pet shelters. According to ActivistCash.com, "the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is not affiliated with your local animal shelter.

"Despite the omnipresent dogs and cats in its fundraising materials, it's not an organization that runs spay/neuter programs or takes in stray, neglected, and abused pets. And despite the common image of animal protection agencies as cash-strapped organizations dedicated to animal welfare, HSUS has become the wealthiest animal rights organization on earth."

Animal shelters are maintained by the American Humane Association, which competes with HSUS for funds and members. AHA, a much more pragmatic group, monitors all films involving animals, and does not oppose ethical, fair chase hunting.

HSUS has 10 regional offices. Most of its money and energy goes into churning out huge volumes of information, but it has started up a Wildlife Land trust, where people can donate lands, which of course will never permit hunting or fishing.

It would be hard to find many people in support of dogfighting or cockfighting, and it's good that Limbaugh is promoting linking religion and animals, but "Many of Mr. Limbaugh's supporters are the very people targeted by the HSUS," says Bud Pidgeon, USSA president and CEO. "By lending such a prominent voice to supporting HSUS, he is helping to deceive people about the real agenda of the organization."

The issues that Limbaugh speaks about in the two commercials are not bad, it's the advocacy of HSUS that has sportsmen hopping mad.

A note to Rush: while it's true that religion does not support animal cruelty, it is also true that no major religion forbids ethical hunting. (All major religions except HSUS, that is.) In fact, all major religions offer guidance about how to hunt so as to show respect for any animals harvested and not feel guilt. (See my book, The Sacred Art of Hunting, for more details.)

Rush says that he owns a cat named "Punkin," who he obviously cares very much about. Rush, please ask Punkin about his policy on killing mice. But don't tell the HSUS what Punkin says.


James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.

Got an opinion? Click ESPN conversation below to post your comment about this story.

May 19, 2009

Animal lovers worldwide now have access to more than a decade’s worth of proof that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) kills thousands of defenseless pets at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. Since 1998, PETA has opted to “put down” 21,339 adoptable dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens instead of finding homes for them.

PETA’s “Animal Record” report for 2008, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year.  During all of 2008, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven pets.

Just seven animals -- out of the 2,216 it took in. PETA just broke its own record.

Why would an animal rights group secretly kill animals at its headquarters? PETA’s continued silence on the matter makes it hard to say for sure. But from a cost-saving standpoint, PETA’s hypocrisy isn’t difficult to understand: Killing adoptable cats and dogs – and storing the bodies in a walk-in freezer until they can be cremated – requires far less money and effort than caring for the pets until they are adopted.

PETA has a $32 million annual budget. But instead of investing in the lives of the thousands of flesh and blood creatures in its care, the group spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes, and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all “unethical.”

The bottom line: PETA’s leaders care more about cutting into their advertising budget than finding homes for the nearly six pets they kill on average, every single day.

The Virginia Beach SPCA, just down the road from PETA’s Norfolk headquarters, manages to adopt out the vast majority of the animals in its care. And it does it on a shoestring budget.

Years of public outrage has not been enough to convince PETA to eliminate its pet eradication program.

Now the death toll of animals in PETA’s care has reached 21,339, including more than 2,000 pets last year. That’s not an animal charity. It’s a slaughterhouse.

Click here to sign our petition to revoke PETA’s tax-exempt status.

SOURCE LIBRARY AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
» Click here to learn what motivates PETA.
» Click here to read about PETA's "black eyes."
» Click here to find out where PETA's millions come from.
» Click here for audio and video of PETA officers and other animal rights extremists.
» Click here to discover how PETA is connected to other activist groups.
» Click here to see PETA's cash donation to the terrorist Earth Liberation Front.
» Click here to see $70,000 in PETA grants to a convicted animal-rights arsonist.
» Click here to see the money trail between PETA and its phony "physicians committee" front group.
» Click here to learn about PETA's hypocritical practice of killing thousands of animals.

Amidst the dozens of animal rights organizations, PETA occupies the niche of -- in Newkirk's own words -- "complete press sluts." Endlessly seeking media exposure, PETA sends out dozens of press releases every week.

In the past, PETA has handled the press for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a violent, underground group of fanatics who plant firebombs in restaurants, destroy butcher shops, and torch research labs. The FBI considers ALF among America's most active and prolific terrorist groups, but PETA compares it to the Underground Railroad and the French Resistance. More than 20 years after its inception, PETA continues to hire convicted ALF militants and funds their legal defense. In at least one case, court records show that Ingrid Newkirk herself was involved in an ALF arson.

PETA has even begun to adopt the tactics of an ALF offshoot known as SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty). This group is notorious for taking protests outside the boardroom and into the living room, attacking their targets at their homes.

In 2001, three masked SHAC members brutally bludgeoned a medical researcher outside his home in England. The lead attacker was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. A few months later, SHAC attacked another research industry employee on his doorstep with a chemical spray to his eyes, leaving him temporarily blinded and writhing in pain. The following year, Newkirk was asked her opinion of SHAC in the Boston Herald. Her response? "More power to SHAC if they can get someone's attention."

By 2003, PETA activists had adopted SHAC's protest techniques, stalking and harassing fast-food restaurant executives. Not content to write letters and picket the chain restaurant's offices, PETA's leaders met with the CEO's pastor, and visited his country club and the manager of one of his favorite restaurants. PETA activists, one dressed in a chicken suit, even protested at the church of two executives, annoying worshipers by driving a truck with giant screens of slaughterhouse video back and forth along the street.

In an effort to win more media exposure, PETA has adopted the counter-intuitive tactic of buying stock in restaurant and food companies that serve and sell meat. After buying just enough shares to qualify, PETA's pattern is to introduce shareholder resolutions that would require animal-rights-oriented practices in the way animals are handled and slaughtered.

PETA's goal as a shareholder, of course, is not to turn a profit. Its resolutions, if passed, would increase the cost of doing business and lower the value of everyone's investment. The group has claimed that it's "not trying to remove meat from the menu." But with a stated long-term goal of "total animal liberation," pushing for animal-welfare changes is just a first step. PETA's short-term goals are to economically cripple these companies, force them to increase the retail price of meat, and nudge consumers toward eating less of it.

PETA collected almost $29 million in donations in 2004 alone, but few donors understand exactly where their money is going. During the past ten years, PETA has spent four times as much on criminals and their legal defense than it has on shelters, spay-neuter programs, and other efforts that actually help animals.... 

Much more here.

Environmental claims neglect human liberty

by Jim Allard / Tuesday, May 5, 2009 00:00

Two weeks ago, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies held an Earth Day conference on energy. Associating environmentalism with energy production is a tragedy, as environmentalism is profoundly anti-science and anti-energy.

The Sierra Club, who was represented at the Nelson conference, supports wind and solar power but opposes coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy. In other words, they oppose every viable source of energy. And even the use of wind and solar is opposed if they are shown to be visually unpleasant, harm birds or disrupt plants.

With such restrictions — and given the fact it takes tens of thousands of acres of wind or solar to match the output of one coal power plant — it is pure fantasy to believe these “renewable” sources will be a viable source of energy. Even after billions of dollars of government subsidies and decades of research, only 2 percent of the world’s power is supplied by “renewable” energies.

But producing energy is not the concern of environmentalists. Environmentalists oppose any technology that actually produces clean, abundant energy.

Nuclear power, for example, continues to be opposed by environmentalists despite its indisputable efficiency, safety and abundance. The Sierra Club claims “all current plant designs are complex, prone to accidents and have severe security vulnerabilities” and advocates shutting down current plants when their licenses expire. Such objections ignore the actual science and history of nuclear power.

For example, at a UW energy conference David Lochbaum, from the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists, was asked what it would take for environmentalists to support nuclear power. He promptly answered, “I ask our climate scientists if hell freezing over — would that solve our global warming problem? Because that’s basically what it would take.”

So, despite posing as a “concerned scientist,” and offering a litany of alleged scientific arguments against nuclear power, in the end, science is irrelevant to his group’s position. By his own admission, there is no scientific standard that could ever be met — environmentalists are opposed to nuclear power on principle.

Other environmentalists, such as UW professor Jim Pawley, smear the entire nuclear industry as a group of killers, saying, “This is an industry that built two bombs that killed a lot of people, and since then they have been trying to make something good out of it.” He teaches a “scientific” course on how to respond to global warming.

Professors Jonathan Patz and Jonathan Foley from the Nelson Institute, for example, claim there is “growing evidence that climate-health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change” and that warming has “already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality.” According to Patz, climate change is “a huge ethical problem” and “one could make the argument that our energy policy is indirectly exporting diseases to other parts of the world.”

To arrive at such claims, they present a long list of data showing that developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are vulnerable to changes in their environment, falling victim to famine and malaria. What about these countries’ lack of development and modernity? Such facts are simply dismissed as requiring more study. As Patz et al. state, “The data available at present does not allow robust control for non-climatic confounding factors such as socio-economic influences.”

Consider the enormity of what is being evaded here. The No. 1 factor determining health and disease prevention is a society’s industrialization, and yet this fact is not only dismissed as a “confounding factor,” it is regarded as an exporter of disease. The authors conclude, “Precautionary approaches to mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gasses will be necessary.”

So, while industrialization has freed man from the ravages of the natural world, it is this very industrialization that gets blamed for Third World vulnerability to nature. Such studies and a myriad of others like them are not attempts at knowledge, but attempts to pass off environmental dogma as science.

Sacrificing low-cost abundant energy — the lifeblood of an industrialized society — in the name of the uncivilized and unindustrialized is as anti-man as one could imagine.

If one cares about clean, efficient sources of energy, one must reject the anti-industrial, anti-scientific ideology of environmentalism and adopt its opposite — man’s right to exploit nature for his benefit. Whatever the merits of a particular technology, it must be evaluated within a context that upholds energy production as paramount to human prosperity. This requires embracing scientific progress, industry and property rights. Above all, it requires scientific honesty.

Jim Allard (jallard@badgerherald.com) is a graduate student in the biological sciences.

Founded in 1892 by John Muir to "make the mountains glad," the Sierra Club is the oldest and arguable the most powerful environmental group in the nation.  But its concerns are no longer limited to the happiness of the valleys.  Once dedicated to conserving wilderness for future human enjoyment, the Sierra Club has become an anti-growth, anti-technology group that puts its utopian environmentalist vision before the well being of humans.

This is not your father's Sierra Club. Some of its leadership positions are held by activists with radical ties and even violent criminals. The Club has done well preserving a "mainstream" image, despite its increasingly radical bent.

The Club’s new extremist priorities are best illustrated in the person of animal-rights extremist Paul Watson, elected to the Sierra Club's board of directors in 2003. Watson founded the ultra-radical Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) in 1977 after being booted from Greenpeace (which he also co-founded) for espousing violence in the name of the environment. Watson and his Sea Shepherd pirates sail the high seas, terrorizing the fishing industry by sinking ships and endangering lives. "I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds," says Watson (as quoted in Access to Energy, 1982).

In 2003 Watson announced that he was openly "advocating the takeover of the Sierra Club," claiming to be just three votes shy of controlling a majority of the group's 15-member board. During the Sierra Club's 2004 election season, Watson allied himself with candidates endorsing strict limits to legal immigration. Promising to "use the resources of the $95-million-a-year budget" to address both immigration policy and animal-rights issues, Watson actively promoted his chosen slate of candidates -- and lost big in a record turnout. Nevertheless, Watson will remain on the Sierra Club's board until 2006.

Bashing Food Technology

Genetically modified food crops have been heralded for their environmental benefits, including the ability to grow more food on less land, and a decreased need for pesticides. Biotech crops are widely considered one solution for chronic food shortages and starvation throughout the world. Nobel laureates and green activists alike have praised agricultural biotechnology and encouraged its advancement.

Despite all the promise that these revolutionary crops hold for the future, the Sierra Club demands "a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops and the release of all GEOs [genetically engineered organisms] into the environment, including those now approved." This technophobic stance falls right in line with former Sierra Club executive director David Brower's creed: "All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent." The natural conclusion of this flawed logic is the much-maligned "precautionary principle"; like many other green groups, the Sierra Club uses it to thwart technological progress in the biotech sector. The Club states its official policy on agricultural biotechnology on its website: "We call for acting in accordance with the precautionary principle … we call for a moratorium on the planting of all genetically engineered crops."

As international food policy expert Dr. Robert Paarlberg has noted in The Wall Street Journal, the "precautionary principle" has run amok, putting millions of lives at risk. "Greens and GM critics," says Paarlberg, "argue that powerful new technologies should be kept under wraps until tested for unexpected or unknown risks as well. Never mind that testing for something unknown is logically impossible (the only way to avoid a completely unknown risk is never to do anything for the first time)." Anti-biotechnology zealot (and former Council for Responsible Genetics head) Martin Teitel candidly disclosed activists' "precautionary" motivation in 2001: "Politically, it's difficult for me," Teitel told a scientific conference, "to go around saying that I want to shut this science down, so it's safer for me to say something like, 'It needs to be done safely before releasing it.'" Teitel added that implementing the precautionary principle really means: "They don't get to do it. Period."

The Sierra Club united with Greenpeace and organic-only food activist groups in 1999 to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of genetically modified crops. In the same year, the Club joined the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Defenders of Wildlife in petitioning the EPA for strict regulation of corn modified to produce the bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin. Bt is a naturally occurring insect poison that protects plants from devastating pests like the European corn borer.

The Sierra Club's EPA petition was part of a coordinated campaign to convince the public that Bt corn posed a risk to the Monarch Butterfly. However, both the USDA and the EPA later concluded that Monarchs were never in any danger. This reinforced the findings of federal regulators who had performed a comprehensive safety review of Bt corn before it was allowed into the marketplace. Yet despite conclusive proof to the contrary, the Sierra Club continues to promote the false notion that biotech corn kills Monarchs.

The Sierra Club is also a member of "Genetically Engineered Food Alert," a PR campaign dedicated to demonizing genetically enhanced food products. In 2002 the Club co-hosted an event called "Reinventing the Meal: Ecological Food Choices for the 21st Century." Attendees were urged to only "grow and buy organic food," shun food from large, modern farms, and avoid foods produced through biotechnology.

According to Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, widely acknowledged as the "father of the green revolution," the reckless actions of groups like the Sierra Club may hinder our ability to feed future populations: "I now say," Borlaug told a De Montfort University crowd in 1997 "that the world has the technology -- either available or well-advanced in the research pipeline -- to feed a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology. Extremists in the environmental movement from the rich nations seem to be doing everything they can to stop scientific progress in its tracks."

Bashing Modern Farming

Biotechnology is just one of the food production practices in the Sierra Club's crosshairs. The group pushes an animal-rights agenda and maintains a coordinated campaign against what it calls "the growing menace" of modern livestock farms.

It’s clear that the Sierra Club is fond of putting its ideological cart before the scientific horse -- if you can use that term without offending the growing animal-rights faction within the organization. Sierra Club activists in Florida endorse PETA's mantra that eating meat is a form of animal abuse that contributes to world hunger. In 2002, the Broward Sierra News promoted "a vegetarian lifestyle as a way to counter the alleged abuse animals endure to feed a hungry and growing global population."  The newsletter plugged PETA and their message that meat-eating in general, and livestock operation in particular, are a cause of world hunger and animal abuse.  Sierra Club chapter in New York and Michigan promote the "Vegetarian Starter Kit" distributed by the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (a PETA front group), as a way to fight "corporate greed."

These chapters also encourage people to sign EarthSave International's "VegPledge" as a way to "save the Earth" by going vegetarian. The New York chapter of the Sierra Club cosponsored an event with People for Animal Rights in 2002 dubbed "Behind Closed Doors." The purpose of the gathering was to vilify livestock operations, and appropriately featured Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Bauston......  Much more here.

• www.AnimalScam.com
• http://www.humanewatch.org/
• http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
• http://www.consumerfreedom.com
• http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/index
• http://townhall.com/
• http://activistcash.com/index.cfm
• http://badgerherald.com/