Category Archives: Animal Rights News

Animal Rights or Welfare – The Big Difference

Huffington Post – The Blog

Who, in this day and age, would stand up in parliament and oppose a ban on wild animals in circuses? Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford, did that last week and blocked Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick‘s last hope of introducing a ban before the general election.

A ban was originally announced in 2012 by animal welfare minister Lord Taylor. With the government having yet to pass the necessary law, Fitzpatrick tried to hasten action by introducing the same legislation as a private members bill in October last year. It was blocked on that occasion by Rosindell, too.

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Animal Rights: Virginia PETA Shelter Has a ‘Kill Rate’ of 81 Percent

Townhall.com

During last weekend’s Oscars, one particular commercial that aired featured young animals somberly saying things like, “I’ll never learn to fetch” and “I won’t ever get to play with my best friend.” Why? Because “PETA killed me.” The seemingly strange spot, produced by the Center for Consumer Freedom, was a spoof on the laughably bad Nationwide Super Bowl commercial earlier this month and was designed to expose People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ hypocrisy. It turns out, however, that unlike the Nationwide commercial, this anti-PETA ad is actually pretty accurate.

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Another Poor Mark for HSUS

Humanewatch.org

Like clockwork, CharityWatch (formerly the American Institute of Philanthropy) has yet again given the Humane Society of the United States a poor mark in its latest Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report. The report gave HSUS a C-minus grade in part because HSUS spends up to $42 for every $100 raised. Considering that the extreme animal rights group raked in more than $120 million in 2013, that’s a lot of dough that goes to fundraising instead of caring for animals.

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Butt asks state AG to investigate HSUS

The Daily Herald ~

NASHVILLE — State Rep. Sheila But, R–Columbia, announced this week she has called on Tennessee’s Attorney General to launch an investigation into the fundraising practices of the Humane Society of the United States following reports of deceptive fundraising tactics by the organization over the last several years.

The call by Representative Butt follows a subpoena issued to HSUS by Oklahoma’s attorney general for the same reason. Butt’s letter also asks the attorney general to immediately issue a “consumer alert” to raise public awareness about the group’s potential fundraising abuses.

 

Veterinarians not fooled by HSUS

Blog: Ty Higgins,Ohio’s Country Journal –

As many in agriculture know by now, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is full of tricks to raise gobs of money for a many number of reasons. A very few of those reasons have anything to do with cats and dogs and the vast majority of the funds raised are used for lobbying efforts, ballot initiatives and other strategies to attack American agriculture and take meat off of the consumer’s plate.

Their hefty bank account is proof that many Americans have been fooled to give their hard earned money to the so-called animal rights group, that only sets aside 1% of that moolah for pet shelters.

For awhile, they seemed to have many of the nation’s veterinarians bamboozled too. HSUS even merged with the the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association (HSVMA), formerly the Association of Veterinarians for Animals Rights (AVAR), in 2008 to build ties with the veterinary community.

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Animal rights groups that paid circus $15.7 million file suit against insurers who cancelled them in 2010

Washington Examiner

When leaders of the animal rights movement agreed May 15 to pay $15.7 million to America’s most famous circus, it seemed to be the end of the 14-year-old case.

After all, at the case’s conclusion, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Emmet G. Sullivan bluntly described the suit brought by the animal rights groups as “groundless and unreasonable from its inception.”

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HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES AND CO-DEFENDANTS PAY $15.75 MILLION SETTLEMENT TO FELD ENTERTAINMENT ENDING 14 YEARS OF LITIGATION

Unprecedented Settlement Brings Total Paid to Parent Company of
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Circus to More Than $25 Million

Groups Settle with Circus After Federal Court Determined Case
Was “Groundless and Unreasonable”

VIENNA, Va. – May 15, 2014 – The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), along with their co-defendants, have paid Feld Entertainment, Inc., the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Circus, $15.75 million to settle cases stemming from a lawsuit they brought against Ringling Bros.® over the care of its Asian elephants. This historic settlement payment to Feld Entertainment ends nearly 14 years of litigation between the parties.

“We hope this settlement payment, and the various court decisions that found against these animal rights activists and their attorneys, will deter individuals and organizations from bringing frivolous litigation like this in the future,” said Kenneth Feld, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Feld Entertainment. “This settlement is a significant milestone for our family-owned business and all the dedicated men and women who care for the Ringling Bros. herd of 42 Asian elephants. We look forward to continuing to set the standard for providing world-class care for all our animals and producing high quality, family entertainment.”

HSUS and animal rights groups the Fund for Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, Born Free USA (formerly the Animal Protection Institute), the Wildlife Advocacy Project, the law firm of Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal, and several current and former attorneys of that firm, paid the settlement for their involvement in the case brought under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that the U.S. District Court ruled was “frivolous,” “vexatious,” and “groundless and unreasonable from its inception.” Today’s settlement also covers the related Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case that Feld Entertainment filed against the groups after discovering they had paid a plaintiff for his participation in the original lawsuit and then attempted to conceal those payments.

In December 2012, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), a former co-defendant in the case, settled its share of the lawsuits by paying Feld Entertainment $9.3 million. Today’s settlement brings the total recovered by Feld Entertainment to more than $25 million in legal fees and expenses, which the company actually spent in defending the ESA case.

“After winning 14 years of litigation, Feld Entertainment has been vindicated.  This case was a colossal abuse of the justice system in which the animal rights groups and their lawyers apparently believed the ends justified the means. It also marks the first time in U.S. history where a defendant in an Endangered Species Act case was found entitled to recover attorneys’ fees against  the plaintiffs due to the Court’s finding of frivolous, vexatious and unreasonable litigation,” said Feld Entertainment’s legal counsel in this matter, John Simpson, a partner with Norton Rose Fulbright’s Washington, D.C., office. “The total settlement amounts represent recovery of 100 percent of the legal fees Feld Entertainment incurred in defending against the ESA lawsuit.”

In the original ESA lawsuit, Feld Entertainment discovered the animal rights groups and their lawyers had paid over $190,000 to a former circus employee, Tom Rider, to be a “paid plaintiff.” The Court also found that the animal rights groups and their attorneys “sought to conceal the nature, extent and purpose of the payments” during the litigation. Their abuse of the judicial system included the issuance of a false statement under oath by Rider, assisted by his counsel, who the Court found was “the same attorney who was paying him” to participate in the litigation. The Court found in addition to Rider being a “paid plaintiff,” that the lawsuit was “frivolous and vexatious.”

Link to Press Release and Other Information

13 Things you didn’t know about HSUS

humanewatch.org

1) HSUS scams Americans out of millions of dollars through manipulative and deceptive advertising. An analysis of HSUS’s TV fundraising appeals that ran between January 2009 and September 2011 determined that more than 85 percent of the animals shown were cats and dogs. However, HSUS doesn’t run a single pet shelter and only gives 1 percent of the money it raises to pet shelters, and it has spent millions on anti-farming and anti-hunting political campaigns.

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Fast-Moving ‘Agricultural Security’ Bill Moves to Floor of Idaho Senate

Food Safety News

A legislative committee on Tuesday sent a bill to the floor of the Idaho Senate for a vote over whether to jail and fine anyone found guilty of a new crime of interference with agricultural production.

After some bill shuffling, the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee sent Senate Bill 1337, just introduced Monday, straight to the floor, but not the nearly identical Senate Bill 1298. SB 1337 excludes farmer’s markets and farm trucking from the protections it provides to other activities as “agricultural production.”

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