Humane Society of the United States merge with the Fund for Animals

2 articles -

1. Humane Society to merge with Fund for Animals
By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
November 19, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Humane Society of the United States is celebrating
its 50th anniversary next week by merging with the late Cleveland
Amory's Fund for Animals to become the largest and richest animal
rights organization in the country.

"This is a historic move that is going to unite the movement," said
Wayne Pacelle, the 39-year-old president of the Humane Society, who
has spearheaded efforts to unite the competing agendas of
organizations fighting for animal rights.

"I'm looking for us to become a hard-hitting campaign organization,"
Pacelle said.

He said he plans to use the organization's combined budget of $96
million next year to hire five lawyers for a litigation unit. The
organization will focus on inhumane treatment of animals in factory
farms, animal cruelty and efforts to enforce crackdowns on illegal
cockfighting. It also will try to revitalize the campaign against fur
clothing, ban inhumane sports hunting with bows and arrows and launch
campaigns against keeping exotics as pets.

Humorist and commentator Cleveland Amory, who died in 1998, created
the Fund for Animals in 1967 after breaking with the Humane Society,
which he thought insufficiently radical and insensitive to the issues
of wild animals. Pacelle previously worked for the Fund.

Pacelle said he would like to further unify the animal rights movement
in the United States through other mergers, or by creating an umbrella
organization that could carry more political clout in Washington.

Rob Sexton, vice president for governmental affairs at the U.S.
Sportsman Alliance, an organization created to combat the anti-hunting
movement, said the merger indicates the Humane Society will become a
more outspoken opponent of hunting.

"The Fund for Animals has always been 100 percent anti-hunting, but
the HSUS has been more subtle about it," he said. "This merger
signals that HSUS is taking off the mask and devoting a greater
amount of its capabilities at hunters. If we do a good job, we are
going to unify sportsmen over this."

Some animal welfare groups predicted the Humane Society is staking
out a more radical stand on animal welfare issues with the merger,
and they doubted Pacelle can achieve his goal of unifying animal
protection groups.

"There are some real differences between animal protection groups,"
said Patti Strand, president of the National Animal Interest Alliance
in Portland, Ore., which promotes animal welfare.

Strand said she is opposed to the confrontational approach to animal
welfare issues taken by the Humane Society and the Fund for Animals,
which she maintains fuels conflicts for fund-raising purposes.

"We oppose them because of their tactics, and their dishonesty in
promoting their agenda," Strand said. "Many of the animal protection
groups don't like being seen as extremists."

The Humane Society grew out of a split in the animal rights movement
in 1954, when Fred Myers, a former reporter for the Kansas City
Journal and New York Mirror, led a breakaway faction from the
American Humane Association, then a coalition of state and local
societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Humane Society historian Bernard Unti said Myers wanted an
organization that would be more aggressive in pursuing federal
legislation to protect animals, and headquartered the Humane Society
of the United States in Washington. Unti said Myers was alarmed that
the American Humane Association was not doing enough about the
welfare of animals obtained from local pounds that were being used in
biomedical research, then unregulated by the government.

Within four years after HSUS was formed on Nov. 22, 1954, the
organization claimed its first victory with the help of women's clubs,
pushing through Congress the Humane Slaughter Act, which requires
humane treatment of animals in slaughterhouses. Myers in 1958
launched an undercover investigation of biomedical laboratories that
exposed abuses prompting Congress to pass the Animal Welfare Act in
1966, establishing standards for housing, feeding and proper care of
animals used for research.

Unti said the Animal Welfare Act was the most significant of the two
new laws because it was extended to include proper treatment of
animals in zoos and at roadside animal exhibits.

"We have to recognize it was not an easy road in this society to get
these laws passed. There was very significant opposition," he said.

Pacelle said one of his major goals is to close the loopholes in the
federal laws that exempted poultry from the Humane Slaughter Act. The
Humane Society is campaigning to stop farmers from debeaking chickens
so they don't peck at each other in close quarters, and to end battery
henhouses.

"I think we're going to see poultry under the Humane Slaughter Act,"
he said. "It's not healthy for animals to be raised in confined
environments."

Pacelle said his organization also is developing programs that will
encourage suburban homeowners to live with the wildlife in rural
neighborhoods and cut back on hunting. He said the organization does
not support a blanket ban on hunting, but is opposed to using bows and
arrows, which are inaccurate and can wound animals.

The Humane Society has launched a vigorous campaign to end so-called
"canned hunts" where animals are put in enclosed areas for hunters to
find them.

On the Net:
http://www.fundforanimals.org/Home/
www.hsus.org
www.naiaonline.org
_____

(Contact Lance Gay at GayL(at)SHNS.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard
News Service, http://www.shns.com)

2. Associated Press
Animal Rights Groups To Merge
POSTED: 4:46 pm EST November 19, 2004

GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- The Humane Society of the United States plans to
merge with The Fund for Animals, forming a new advocacy organization
and lobbying arm that both hope have will have greater clout for
animal rights issues.

The newly formed group will be headquartered in Washington but
maintain a large office in Gaithersburg. It will have roughly 350
workers and a budget of $95 million next year. It will also include a
lobbying section that both expect will have more freedom to push the
group's agenda in Washington and state capitals, officials said.

"We've decided we can be stronger if we join together," said Michael
Markarian, president of the Fund for Animals.

The new organization will focus on four major issues - fur, sport
hunting, factory farming and animal cruelty issues such as cock
fighting and dog fighting. It will also operate six animal
sanctuaries and treatment centers nationwide. Both groups will keep
their names.

But perhaps most important to both is the greater freedom to spend
money on lobbying.

The two are currently classified as nonprofit charities, meaning there
are limits on their lobbying activities, according to Nick Braden,
vice president of communications for the Humane Society. The new
political arm, to be called the HSUS Fund for Animals, will be
classified as a social welfare group, allowing it to spend more on
lobbying.

Currently both can only spend around $1.5 million combined each year,
a figure Braden said is dwarfed by organizations that often clash with
animal rights groups, such as the National Rifle Association.

"Right now we are at a pretty big disadvantage compared to some of our
opponents," Braden said.

http://www.fundforanimals.org/Home/
http://www.hsus.org
http://www.naiaonline.org

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