by Rose Bier - Sunday, August 14, 2016
Many households in America are familiar with the tear-jerking commercials showing distressed and malnourished animals followed by a plea from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) asking for a donation of “just $19 dollars a month” to help rescue suffering and abused animals. The commercial is enough to make any animal lover pick up the phone and donate—but do these kindhearted donors know where their money is really going?
Most would be astonished to learn that less than .5 percent of HSUS's operating budget goes to hands-on pet shelters. The majority of donor money goes toward funding HSUS executives' personal pension plans and saving for rainy days in the form of offshore bank accounts.
Most recently, HumaneWatch.org, a project of the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), filed an IRS complaint against HSUS after learning the extremist group had signed off on its 2015 tax return showing that $58 million had been placed in Caribbean hedge funds—bringing the total amount invested into these funds to $58 million just since 2012. In 2014, more than half of the money raised by HSUS went toward these types of investments. While Congress has caught on to their extensive lobbying activities (six members have filed a complaint), HSUS will likely enjoy a favorable outcome considering IRS official Lois Learner, head of oversight for tax-exempt organizations, was a member of HSUS herself.
Look Who is on the HSUS Payroll
In addition to having friends in high places, on July 19, HSUS announced it has hired Kate Karl, deputy general counsel and lobbyist for the American Cancer Society (ACS) since 2008, to replace current general counsel Roger Kindler. Immersed in misconduct of his own, Kindler is facing his scandal in the form of an IRS complaint that has been filed against him. As for Karl, more than a few hunting and conservation groups are noting she seems to be the perfect choice to foster HSUS' crooked financial ways. ACS has a history of using donor money to its personal benefit—to the amount of pension plan obligations exceeding four times what was spent on cancer research, a fact that WSB-TV in Atlanta exposed in 2011. WSB-TV also has exposed HSUS for its multi-million-dollar pension plan. To watch the clip, click here.
HSUS Exposed: Take it Straight from the Horse's Mouth
HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle wants you to think he is a caring pet lover who works tirelessly to improve the lives of animals—only because he wants to use your money for his benefit. But one can only put up a false persona for so long.
Pacelle made it clear that he doesn't care for hunters or animals during an interview with author and outdoor writer Ted Kerasote when he stated, "I've always had an affinity for wildlife, and the direct assault made on that wildlife by hunters and trappers has always infuriated me. ...At the same time I don't have a hands-on fondness for animals." As we know, hunters have passionately supported the survival of all wildlife species—both game and non-game—by contributing billions of dollars toward conservation efforts, which is much more than Pacelle's dishonest use of donor money meant to be put toward animal welfare.
Oddly, Pacelle even has noted multiple times that he’s not a fan of mankind, either. In the same interview mentioned above, Pacelle said he “takes it as a very serious and personal responsibility not to put another consumer on this planet.” But he doesn’t stop there. As reported by HumaneWatch.org, in a Forbes article just last month, Pacelle concluded that "humans are miserly, uncreative and inhumane to other animals." So, what do you like, Mr. Pacelle?
The take-away message from all of this? HSUS and its executives are not who and what they claim to be. Help to expose HSUS. Tell everyone who wants to contribute to pet shelters and the animals they support that they should give locally.