(Beth Clifton collage)
“Zombie groups” raise funds & do little else
[Video version is accessible at https://youtu.be/NleYZ6GAC8Y.]
Hi folks. I’m Steve Hindi for SHowing Animals Respect & Kindness.
My friends Beth and Merritt Clifton of ANIMALS 24-7 on May 9, 2021 posted an article, Animal labs get free pass on inspections; AV groups mostly don’t notice, that, if anyone were paying attention, should have caused serious, serious outrage.
Explained ANIMALS 24-7, “Three business days plus a weekend of apparent near-complete non-response from the animal advocacy community have elapsed since the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic on May 5, 2021 revealed that the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service in 2019 secretly quit doing complete annual inspections of animal research facilities.”
Kitty Block. (HSUS photo)
HSUS president wrote a blog post
Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block and Humane Society Legislative Fund president Sara Amundson did finally get around to jointly writing a blog post, two days later, which asked members of their organizations to “urge the USDA to do full inspections.”
Otherwise, the only hint of outrage appears to have been from a minor anti-vivisection society that thought it should have been recognized for having supposedly sent an email of protest to the USDA, with no public announcement, before the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic disclosed the non-inspections.
The electronic transmission record showed that the email was sent three days later, three hours after Science magazine online editor David Grimm amplified the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic findings to an international audience of scientists and lay people.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Indicative of what is happening elsewhere in animal protection”
The mega-million dollar groups having visibly done little or nothing about the flagrant USDA dereliction of duty to enforce the federal Animal Welfare Act, included, besides the Humane Society of the U.S., the American Anti-Vivisection Society, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, In Defense of Animals, the National Anti-Vivisection Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA], and others.
Even now, it is not clear that any of them are doing much of anything, for instance by organizing demonstrations or filing lawsuits. The Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service appears to be getting away unscathed for not doing their job for at least two years.
Unfortunately, the inattention to what is going on in the realm of vivisection is indicative of what is happening elsewhere in animal protection. Animal protection groups today––especially the big ones––do very, very little for animals.
The efforts of these groups are directed more at fundraising than action to help animals. It’s really just another form of exploitation.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Only remnant of life is fundraising
There are exceptions, such as Last Chance for Animals, the Humane Farming Association, Fish Feel and some others. I’ve seen these people in the field, and they take action.
They are not hoarding hundreds of millions of dollars while relentlessly begging for more. But generally, self-enrichment is the name of the game in animal protection today, not animal protection. That is an appalling reality.
The other day I was talking to someone in the movement whom I’ve known for years. He has worked in a number of animal organizations.
He referenced these as “zombie” groups, mainly dead. The only remnant of life remaining is aimed at fundraising. There is little if any real effort at making a better world for animals.
Today, big groups especially cater to the whims and egos of their big donors, and how to tug at the heartstrings of new suckers.
So long as the money keeps rolling in, that is good enough for those groups. Gone are ethics, morals or conscience. Gone is the real work of saving animals.
HSUS president Kitty Block is at left, Donald Trump at right. (Beth Clifton collage)
“Animal protection has become a cult”
Zombie groups. My friend hit it right on the head. That is the bulk of animal protection today, and it really sucks.
It’s not really a movement any more. Today’s animal protection is far more an industry. And that whole “nonprofit” thing? Forget about it. Some of them may sell more logo-covered branded merchandise than Banana Republic.
In many ways, animal protection has become a cult, similar to today’s Republican party.
Statements and positions are no longer judged by truth or accuracy, but rather, how well does it comport with the party line, and whatever you do, don’t criticize the “dear leaders.”
There was a time when SHARK and I would go to animal conferences to try to infuse some energy and action into the movement. We would show people our hi-pods, and our drones and high-powered cameras, and other technology accomplishing great strides for animals. We wanted to get people involved, be it with us, with other groups, or on their own.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Curiosity, active training, active thought”
But this approach entails curiosity, active training, active thought, and perhaps of most concern, work—hard work in weather extremes and dangerous and unfriendly environments.
Finding productivity in animal protection these days is like trying to find a T-bone steak in a vegan restaurant. Empty platitudes are far more popular, and they require a lot less effort.
Movement leaders didn’t like the things I said at their little soirees. They didn’t like it when I pointed out that weak leaders result in weak followers. That’s an indisputable fact that applies anywhere, be it an army, a corporation, a family, and most certainly, a movement.
Weak leaders in the animal protection movement have led to groups doing almost nothing of substance, and followers who think that this is acceptable, while millions and billions of animals die.
I’ve often said that animals deserve a far, far better movement. You can imagine how well that goes over with those weak leaders. But it’s true.
I’d love to sit at a discussion table to expound on the subject, but that will never happen, simply because my claim would be so easy to prove.
Steve Hindi. (Merritt Clifton photo)
Ostracized
As a result of speaking the truth about the pitiful state of animal protection, and openly saying what many others think privately, SHARK is largely ostracized from the animal protection movement.
Beth and Merritt Clifton are also considered outliers, because they were speaking truth to power even before there was a SHARK.
Given the way things are, I’m proud to stand with the Cliftons.
If you care about animals, and especially if you donate to animal protection groups, please research carefully before you send your hard-earned money.
Beth & Merritt Clifton
In SHARK’s case, we actually encourage our donors to join us on the front line if they can, so they can see our efforts first hand.
For those that can’t join us on the front lines, our over 1,400 videos on YouTube show our hard field work, and the resulting successes for our animal friends.
I’m Steve Hindi for SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness.
Please donate to help support our work:
www.animals24-7.org/donate/
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I totally agree!!! Non-profits are all about enough money to buy a house and live in DC. Buy influence. I ask kids if you have a yacht and it takes $30,000 to fill the gas tank, how many $125 ink cartridges do you need to sell to fill it? I call it the real new math. The big animal nonprofits don’t care, except for running ads for pit bulls. Then they don’t report the maulings. TV news just took hundreds of thousands if not millions from these nonprofits, so they don’t report them either. It’s amazing. My cousin was a vet and was an inspector for the Department of Agriculture. It’s expensive to hire professionals. With Covid they are all retired. The government is giving so much money away that Vegas made $11 billion dollars this first quarter. Hmmm. I’m not a vegan, but we do vegetarian meals several times a week. We need to protect animals, like I have said many times, I shop at stores that offer grass fed, chickens that free feed. I’ll pay more. I totally agree, but its much bigger, its about money, money, money (J. Lennon, think song that L Minnelli did). Yes GREED has taken over animal protection.
If you’re not vegan than how can you say that you “. . . need to protect animals, like [you] have said many times . . . “? Just because animals are grass fed or chickens are free fed, means nothing. There is no humane slaughter. Hypocrite!
With all respect to Ms. Schmidt, whom I do not know, I have learned that being a vegan is not an inoculation against hypocrisy. I know of, and have worked with meat eaters willing to work harder, and put more on the line for animals than the vast majority of vegans who do nothing other than not put animals in their mouths.
As an example, SHARK has had meat eaters in Pennsylvania working for the victims of pigeon shoots. One of the reasons we had those meat eaters there is because all the vegans in PA had other things to do that kept them from working on the most disturbing abuse in the state. In fact, those activities have kept them away week after week, month after month, year after year, for a very long time.
Vegan? Doesn’t have quite the ring it used to for me. I may not agree with the steak eater, but we’ll get more done together then a whole state full of smug vegans looking down their nose at us.
Absolutely agree and stopped support for those big orgs a long time ago. Sharing to socials with gratitude always to you both, for telling it like it is.
Editor’s note: While the author of the following comment may hold whatever opinions she wishes, she makes several superficially “factual” claims which are significantly at odds with the public record, and are accordingly corrected below.
I think that when the actual animal welfare groups were taken over by the radicals, back in the seventies, the goal was to profiteer off the members of the public who care about animals. They put forward some pitiful photos of dog or cats or hogs or horses and asked for donations. In the case of the HSUS it has long been known that one penny from each dollar goes for the animal issues. In the case of PETA it has long been known that they euthanize the majority of animals that come into their care. I remember when it was announced they euthanized a whole bunch of rabbits because they “got tired of caring for them.” The focus on raising money is for large salaries, nice retirement funds, massive PR campaigns and lawsuits and lobbyists. It is probably much more useful for members of the public who care about animals to donate to their local animal shelter.
No national “animal welfare groups” have ever been “taken over by the radicals,” either “back in the seventies” or at any time since. As of 1981, the only major national animal advocacy organizations which were not still directed by the founders were the always very conservative American Humane Association; the American SPCA, headed by John Kullberg from 1978 to 1991; and the Humane Society of the U.S., headed from 1970 to 1998 by John Hoyt. Kullberg, Hoyt, and then-Massachusetts SPCA president Gus Thornton in 1990 took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times to denounce “animal rights radicalism.”
The paid fundraisers and direct mail fundraising companies who during those years introduced the intensive emphasis on fundraising characterizing much animal advocacy ever since were, without exception known to ANIMALS 24-7, primarily engaged in fundraising for Republican candidates and right-leaning political causes. Animal advocacy fundraising, for them, was and remains a sideline.
Concerning the allegation that, “In the case of the HSUS it has long been known that one penny from each dollar goes for the animal issues,” the most recent HSUS filing of IRS Form 990 claims total expenditures of $138,682,954, with program service expenditures of $93,458,741, of which $32,457,816 were joint costs incurred in connection with a fundraising campaign. Thus, at worst, 44% of each dollar raised went “for the animal issues.”
The comparable figure for PETA would be 27%, derived from combining the numbers of the IRS Form 990 filing from PETA itself with those from the Foundation to Support Animal Protection, a subsidiary which does much of the PETA fundraising.
“Massive PR campaigns and lawsuits and lobbyists” are otherwise described as humane education, litigation, and advocacy, which is precisely what all of the organizations named above were incorporated to do.
Speaking of HSUS, that organization used to do a LOT of rodeo work back in the 1980’s: films, flyers, PSA’s, a “Joint Rodeo Policy Statement” with the American Humane Association……Today: ZILCH.
Drop HSUS CEO Kitty Block a polite note, encouraging HSUS to re-join the fray. They could make a difference. They certainly have the resources: staff, info, $$$.
EMAIL – kblock@humanesociety.org
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
While I support Mr. Mills’ call for HSUS to again deal with rodeos, I must note that HSUS has taken opportunities to claim they are working on issues merely for the sake of fundraising. In fact, that happened in the case of rodeo.
Back in the nineties, another SHARK investigator and I took a Hard Copy team to a California rodeo. Our cameras exposed animals shocked, and having their tails twisted and raked over fences, and other cruelty. Veterinarian Peggy Larson gave expert opinion about rodeo animal abuse.
Hard Copy did a terrific story that opened a lot of people’s eyes. At the very end of the story, they included a statement that HSUS was beginning a national campaign against rodeo. Far from being upset, we were ecstatic, for the very reason that Mr. Mills states, because “They certainly have the resources: staff, info, $$$.”
Imagine our surprise and anger when we learned that the announcement was a complete lie. There was no campaign. It was never even planned. It was just an opportunity to steal credit and divert attention, and financial support, from those who really did the work. At the time, I couldn’t even process how a supposed animal protection organizations could stoop so low.
I have since grown up, and realize that the animal protection movement includes some of the most predatory profiteers to be found anywhere. I long ago lost track of the number of organizations stealing credit for our work, and SHARK is certainly not the only group to experience such thievery. My acknowledgement of this fact has never blunted my revulsion of such contemptible behavior.
Here is a link to the Hard Copy story. The HSUS lie appears in the last minute.
https://youtu.be/ALh6IzG2R4g
Of course, if Kitty Block, current HSUS president, or past president Wayne Pacelle care to respond, I encourage them to do so.
I don’t think Joe and Jane Public are really aware of the differences between animal advocacy organizations. One example of this is the confusion between HSUS and local humane societies.
SHARK is like a terrestrial Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, focusing on direct action to protect the defenceless. Kudos to SHARK, and to the Cliftons for telling the hard truth.
Obviously, there are many other animal or nature advocacy organizations, from WWF to the Nature Conservancy to the Animal Welfare Institute. I know Hindi can’t comment on all of them, but I do appreciate his insights.