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HIDDEN
ENEMY
:
HSUS
– The Humane Society of the United States
Reptile breeders should feel pride in the progress
they’ve helped achieve over the past several decades.
We’ve unraveled many of the mysteries of inducing our animals to
reproduce in captivity, and have made ‘Captive-Bred’ ( = 'CB' ) a common adjective in
the hobby and industry. CB
applied to herps is now understood to reflect ‘quality’ and
‘hardiness’ as pets. The
percentage of CB herps available today dwarfs what we had just
ten years ago, and is already making up a significant proportion of herps
sold in pet shops.
Just as it seems obvious to us close to the herp industry that this
natural evolution is proceeding well, new threats to our freedom to keep
herps looms in the form of three ‘new’ enemies – the Humane
Society of the United States (HSUS), The Fund
For Animals, and People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The PETA are
presently under scrutiny by the F.B.I. as a terrorism network because of
their admission of funding extremists who have destroyed several
facilities by fire. These closely-aligned
organizations have remained largely hidden from our notice until recently.
They have now set their sights
on the reptile hobby and trade, their ultimate goals being to stop it
completely.
The HSUS is a familiar group to most
people. Its name seems to
imply it all – humane treatment for animals.
In the past, the group took in abandoned cats and dogs, prosecuted
farms that allowed livestock to starve, and went after people who mistreated animals in some way.
It created animal shelters, promoted spay-neuter programs, and
developed modern euthanasia protocols.
We all applauded the old HSUS efforts and supported it with our
donations. We believed in what
it stood for and helped make it a huge and powerful organization.
The HSUS was wildly successful in
its efforts. The public was
educated and abuse cases dwindled. Nowadays,
it’s
headline news when a rare case of neglect or other atrocity
against animals is uncovered and prosecuted.
Anyone who may have allowed care of an animal in their custody to
become substandard is now frightfully aware of the consequences of such
unacceptable behavior.
Why is this seemingly worthy
organization a problem now?
Since
1954, the HSUS has grown into a huge bureaucratic organization with 200+
employees and well over $200,000,000 (by 2005) in their bank
accounts. Less
than one-half of 1% of it is used to help the many ‘Humane Society’ shelters
in cities across America.
The HSUS long ago separated itself from all the smaller
regional societies around the country, sharing no funding at all with
them now. You
are doing
virtually
nothing to help your local community animal shelter by
donating money to the Humane Society of the United
States!
Someone who takes the HSUS up on
their infomercial request for "just $19 dollars a month" will
pay HSUS $228 over the course of a year. Of
that, just $1.03 will reach a pet shelter.
The HSUS got fat and prosperous capitalizing
on our concern for the plight of homeless animals by bombarding us with
tear-jerking fundraising campaigns. Its
assets naturally attracted humaniac extremist groups like PETA that wished
to tap into the war chest of funds. Radical
animal rights proponents thoroughly infiltrated the HSUS and instilled
their idealistic views as representing the whole organization’s
doctrine. Then a subtle
‘coup’ occurred in 1973, warranted by the changing leadership because “the costs of running a local animal control operation [was]
drawing off funds needed elsewhere”.
(< That quote is from the HSUS’ own website!)
They literally declared that supporting the small Humane Society shelters
across the U.S. was 'stealing' the money needed to pursue their own new
humaniac agendas.
The HSUS split away completely, dropping financial support of all the
smaller state ‘Humane Society’ groups.
But they did it quietly to leave everyone with the logical
impression they were now just the national headquarters coordinating all
‘their local chapters’. They
have purposely done nothing to erase that illusion of ‘umbrella
organization’ to insure receiving all the same donation monies you
thought were still supporting your home town animal shelters.
The HSUS’s coffers swelled because they didn’t have to share
the wealth anymore. It was a
pretty sneaky and wildly successful move on their part!
The HSUS grew into a rich monster that basked in the glory of its past
accomplishments of conquering cruelty to animals.
But with that war largely won, the ‘new’ HSUS had a different
agenda to set its sights on. Most
importantly, it had to continue evoking sympathy donations from the public
to keep the money flowing in. Creating
a new, visible enemy became a necessity.
They chose to refocus on non-traditional pets largely because the
ranks of people in the bird, reptile and fish hobbies / industries were
less unified, easier targets. This
is why reptile-keeping has come under attack.
We’re the new excuse – the new bad guys – to keep their
paychecks coming in steadily.
In its distorted view (and the published rhetoric
it distributes to back it),
reptiles are totally unsuitable as pets.
The HSUS preaches that nearly all reptiles suffer shortened life spans when kept in cages.
It goes so far as to include all captive-bred herps in that
appraisal, but not
through sheer ignorance.
The HSUS’s
clever strategy is to focus the public’s attention on isolated problems
it can capture in pictures or on video to invoke sympathy, then imply that
those disturbing images represent the norm in the entire industry.
Recognizing the huge progress in herpetoculture over the past
couple decades would not strengthen the gloomy ecological scenario it
wants people to remember when filling out those donation checks.
The HSUS purposely ignores captive breeding success and how it is
rapidly replacing the need for some wild-caught herps. It's crucial the public
stay duped into believing that stopping reptile-keeping is the only way to
protect animals in nature. The HSUS
needs this manufactured image to focus public condemnation and thus assure
continued funding of their efforts.
Another HSUS approach is to scare us into
believing that reptile-related Salmonella
has reached plague proportions. Its
well-paid advertising staff uses the craftiest psychology to twist facts
and statistics and to publicize the ‘huge’ health threat herps pose.
It knows such tactics weigh heavily on parents’ minds, hoping
those frightened parents will prohibit their children from having herps at all.
Just how big
a problem is Salmonella
anyway? Bill and I do not
know, or even know of, anyone
who has ever contracted Salmonella
from reptiles in their entire lives. We
don’t even personally know of any Salmonella
cases, period, and we know and meet lots of herp keepers! We
don't doubt that it happens occasionally, but the HSUS is blowing public health fears
all out of proportion to achieve
their animal rights goals.
Unlike the old HSUS, the new PETAphile
leaders have declared total war on all
pet keepers, intending to end the practice of owning pets completely.
They’ve stated that goal repeatedly, though they try to subtly
disguise the true, hidden agenda so not to scare away contributions from
cat and dog owners. On their
website’s home page (http://www.hsus.org),
they state “Promoting the protection of all
animals”. What they mean is
to protect ALL animals from any use by
humans - as pets, as food, as leather, for medical research --- EVERYthing!
Don’t let them fool you --- HSUS and PETA are essentially
synonymous today.
The HSUS is presently trying to make virtually every act of pet keeping an
offense by emphasizing every imperfection in our ability to draft new
species into captivity / domestication.
They subtly bombard schools with free 'animal information' that
carries their propaganda, preaching their private agenda to children so
their 'conservation message' is taken to heart early. When
indoctrinated while young and impressionable, they hope those children
will support the HSUS as future voters / donators. The HSUS is no longer composed of soldiers for a noble cause.
They’re more like mercenaries who must create an enemy to assure
their continued employment. The
modern HSUS is an animal rights organization masquerading as an animal
welfare organization. Supporting
them is like supplying terrorists with money to hurt us.
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The HSUS published this book
{>>>} in 2001 - a persuasive political ploy disguised as a
'scientific report'. It was freely distributed to all U.S. governmental regulatory bodies
to sway them to help their cause. This is how
donation money sent to the HSUS is put to 'good' use. The last
paragraph of the entire 'study' sums up their position:
"Finally, we recommend that [government] regulatory bodies put
an end to the reptile trade:
State and local authorities are encouraged to ban the commercial
collection of reptiles to protect wild populations of reptiles and ban
the sale of reptiles as pets to the general public
in order to protect human health..." |
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If this subject intrigues you and
you'd like to watch the most concise, brilliantly organized lecture (45
minutes) that explains what the HSUS is about, click the link below to
view and listen to this video:
http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/dealing_with_the_humaniacs_in_ten_easy_lessons/
For more info on the dark side of the
HSUS and PETA, go to www.HumaneWatch.org
or http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/136-humane-society-of-the-united-states
or http://www.animalscam.com
. Or read
the book The
Hijacking of the Humane Movement: Animal Extremism by Patti & Rod
Strand.
Help
neuter the HSUS by supporting the watchdog group that exposes them daily.
. . . 
IMPORTANT
NOTE: Don’t
abandon the local Humane
Society animal shelters in your own community – they’re still doing their commendable work
as always.
We have not suddenly
become political activists. This exposé is just an honest response to the attack
the HSUS initiated upon all herp keepers. We
hope it may convince you to spread the word to friends and family. Avoid
doing
anything that benefits the Humane Society of the United States,
the reptile hobby and industry's new sworn
enemy.
- - - Kathy
Love / CornUtopia
& Bill Love / Blue
Chameleon Ventures
P.S. -
All concerned herpers are encouraged to include a link to this
page.
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