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Tearing down is always simpler than
building. Fiction is often more provocative than fact. Surely
that explains, at least partly, how animal rights groups have so
successfully positioned their agendas within mainstream society.
If that wasn’t the case, surely no
thinking person would willingly contribute money to an
organization like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA),
which in turn has funded violent radical organizations such as
the Animal Liberation Front, and compared the humane slaughter
of poultry to the Holocaust.
Understand, animal rights refers
to exactly that, the notion that animals are on par with humans
rather than subject to humans as the Good Book pointed out at
the beginning of time. The animal rights philosophy is
diametrically opposed to that of animal welfare, which
emphasizes the responsibility people have in providing humane
treatment to the animals in their care.
“In the United States today,
there are over 100 organizations dedicated to enforcing this
animal rights mentality,” according to the Center for Consumer
Freedom (CCF). “Their annual budgets total more than $200
million. And they’re deadly serious about achieving their goals.
In contrast, the people who are doing the most to promote animal
welfare today are the very ones that the animal rights movement
wants to put out of business.” In other words, animal rightists
are aiming to abolish livestock production, period; they’re
trying to get rid of ranchers and livestock producers, the most
sincere and effective animal welfarists there are.
Based on tax records compiled by CCF, four such organizations—PETA,
the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and Center for Science
in the Public Interest (CSPI)—reported a combined annual income
of $133.8 million in 2004.
Just a few years ago, Kay
Johnson, executive vice president of Animal Agriculture Alliance
(AAA—formally known as the Animal Industry Foundation) explained
there were at least 400 animal protection groups in the United
States, everything from the mainstream and reasonable American
Humane Association (AHA) to the radical PETA. Of those, 22
organizations posted a combined budget of more than $168 million
in 1998, $14 million more than in 1997, and that was $13 million
more than 1996. At the time, AAA had an annual budget of about
$250,000.
AAA is a non-profit, broad-based
coalition of individual producers, producer organizations,
suppliers, packer-processors, private industry members and
retailers. Johnson explains the Alliance’s mission is to
communicate the substantial value of animal agriculture in the
nation’s economy, productivity, vitality and security, while
emphasizing that that animal well-being is central to producing
safe, high-quality, affordable food and other products essential
to daily life.
Evolving Idiocy
“…Students in grades kindergarten through 12 are a prime target
for animal rights advocates, and the research community needs to
counter their misinformation with good information…They attract
older students by recruiting rock musicians and movie stars to
plead their case. Animal rights literature flooding middle and
high schools exploits teenagers’ growing social awareness and
concern for the helpless, a concern that is usually not tempered
with knowledge of the part that animals play in improving human
health, or personal experience with disease and death...”
Though this statement sounds like
today’s headlines, it’s from a 1997 issue of Science magazine,
penned by Deborah Runkle of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and Ellen Grange, then at the Department
of Biological Science, Florida State University.
Depending on which version of
popular history you ascribe to, animal rights groups grew out of
environmental activist organizations associated with the
Eco-movement of the 1970’s. Arguably, animal rights groups first
cut their teeth on issues like whaling and seal harvest. By the
1990’s the most visible proponents of animals having the same
rights as people were richly funded. Regrettably, by 2000,
consumers had become so numbed by the onslaught of knucklehead
celebrities endorsing this activist group and that one that
there wasn’t much shock left. That doesn’t mean the messages are
ignored, though.
When Western Cowman interviewed
Johnson in 2004, she cautioned, “There may be a lackluster
feeling in the industry about the animal rights movement because
you don’t see the media report about it as much, but it’s
totally the opposite. There are so many approaches being taken
now that are much more detrimental to the industry than a
protest. Producers may not see it as being as big a concern
today as it was when in fact it is an even bigger concern.”
More recently, in a February USA
Today article, Johnson explained, “Ultimately, their (animal
rights groups) goal is to eliminate animals being used as food.
There’s a real danger when we allow a very small minority of
activists to dictate procedures that should be used to raise
animals for food.”
Shifting Sense
If you ever wondered about the ultimate influence of these types
of organizations, all you’ve had to do was watch the news for
the past year or so.
Animal rights groups continue to
make inroads to establishing state laws aimed at everything from
eliminating gestation crates in pork production, to altering how
layer chickens are handled, to defining farm size and ownership,
presumably in the name of defending the family farm.
Most glaringly, animal rights
groups effectively banned horse slaughter in the United States
via state laws that shuttered America’s remaining plants in
Texas and Illinois last year. Now, they’re trying to make it
illegal to haul horses out of the country for slaughter.
Interestingly, some of the same
legislators who support the ban on horse slaughter—which erodes
equine welfare by heightening neglect of unwanted
horses—apparently see no hypocrisy in also being among the first
to rant and rail about abuses at the California cattle slaughter
plant, which led to the record large beef recall.
In the abuse case at
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing (see Ridin’ the Gap, page ) the
packer and some of its employees are obviously at fault, as are
inspectors charged with monitoring conditions at the plant, as
is HSUS, which allegedly delayed going public with the
incriminating video filmed for them by an employee at the plant.
But, someone decided to put the cows in question on a truck and
haul them to the plant when they obviously were in no condition
to make the trip.
Like other credible livestock and
meat organizations, AAA condemned the abuse depicted in the
Hallmark video, explaining, “The Alliance is dismayed at the
apparent improper handling of cattle that resulted in the
violation of food safety regulations at the Hallmark/Westland
Meat Packing Company. We are confident that this incident is not
reflective of the meat packing industry overall, and is in
complete violation of animal handling guidelines established by
the U.S. meat packing industry in 1997, as well as federal
regulations enforced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
That’s what’s so frustrating to
producers, the mass majority of whom take their animal welfare
responsibilities more than seriously. There are right at 100
Beef Quality Assurance programs in this country, according to
the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Those programs have
included animal welfare and handling guidelines for years. The
beef packing industry adopted its first animal welfare
guidelines about a decade ago. That’s before considering the
amount of industry research conducted and education consumed by
cattle producers in the name of providing their stock with more
care than the most ardent animal rightists could even conceive
was possible to provide.
Facts just aren’t that
sensational, though.
Fighting Fire with Fire
That’s why the livestock industry is fortunate that a handful of
organizations have picked up the gauntlet to fight the activists
of the world on their own terms. CCF—a nonprofit coalition
supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working
together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer
choices—serves as a prime example. If you’ve never visited the
CCF website (www.consumerfreedom.com),
you need to. The organization battles left-wing groups head-on.
Besides also condemning the abuse
at Hallmark, CFF called for a congressional perjury
investigation, claiming a statement from the San Bernardino
County District Attorney refutes Congressional testimony by an
HSUS spokesperson, alleging the District Attorney had asked HSUS
to withhold the video from USDA and other legal authorities.
Similarly, in January, CCF
formally petitioned Virginia’s Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Services (VDACS), requesting that the government agency
officially reclassify PETA headquarters as a slaughterhouse.
According to CCF, an official
report filed by PETA shows that the animal rights group put to
death nearly every dog, cat, and other pet it took in for
adoption in 2006.
“During that year, the well-known
animal rights group managed to find adoptive homes for just 12
animals. Not counting pets brought to PETA for spaying or
neutering, the organization killed 2,981 of the 3,061 ‘companion
animals’ it took in,” say CCF representatives.
“According to VDACS, the average
euthanasia rate for humane societies in Virginia was 34.7
percent in 2006. PETA’s ‘kill rate’ was 97.4 percent.”
“It is absurd to classify PETA as
a ‘humane society’ when its employees are slaughtering nearly
every companion animal they bring in,” said CCF Director of
Research David Martosko. “PETA has killed over 17,000 pets since
1998. Given the group’s astonishing habit of killing adoptable
dogs and cats with such ruthless efficiency, it’s only fair that
the state of Virginia refer to PETA as a slaughterhouse.”
Yet people continue sending them
money. |
