Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation

House Passes Wild Horse and Burro Protections

Today, the House voted handily in favor of a bill, H.R. 1018 introduced by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), to provide sweeping new protections for wild horses and burros inhabiting public lands in the West. The vote was 239-185.

Rahall’s bill, known as the Restore Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act and co-authored by Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), comes in response to woeful mismanagement of wild horses and burros by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). BLM has been rounding up thousands of horses from our public lands, and then adopting out fewer than half of the animals they capture. As a result, BLM is now holding about 31,000 wild horses in captivity, with taxpayers footing the bill. If the program isn’t revamped, there will soon be more wild horses in captivity than in the wild (there are now estimated to be approximately 35,000 horses and burros roaming federal lands in 10 Western states, with a majority of the horses in Nevada and Wyoming).

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It’s inhumane for the horses, who are subjected to regular rounds-ups and long-term captivity, and ultimately life-threatening for them because BLM last year claimed it might even resort to slaughtering the animals. It’s also a fiscal mess and it’s spiraling out of control, with two-thirds of all dollars set aside for horses going to feed and house captive wild mustangs and burros. That percentage is expected to increase to 75 percent this year. In short, the program has strayed far from its original purpose, which was to protect wild horses and burros on the range and maintain them as symbols of American culture.

Thanks to a major grant from the Annenberg Foundation, The HSUS has been working with the BLM to expand fertility control as a humane population control tool, which will reduce the need for round-ups and thereby reduce the flow of horses from the range to captive settings. The Rahall bill, if approved by the Senate and signed by President Obama, will provide momentum to our efforts, and address other problems with the horse and burro program. The Rahall bill will also ban commercial slaughter of wild horses, reversing a rider pushed by former Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and protecting the animals now in captivity. It has the stated goal of allowing horses to occupy public lands they previously used, but which BLM has closed off to the horses after rounding up entire herds. And finally, Rahall’s bill will also help promote the horse and burro adoption program, so that the current population of captive horses can go to suitable homes and get out of overcrowded holding facilities run by BLM.

In addition to passing H.R. 1018, the House defeated an amendment by Ranking Minority Member Richard “Doc” Hastings (R-Wash.) to narrow the bill and omit critical provisions relating to fertility control, adoption, and range expansion for the horses. That amendment was rejected 348-74.

I was distressed to see House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) yet again go down to the floor and assail yet another animal welfare bill. Boehner said it was “an insult” to the American people to consider an animal protection bill during the nation’s economic crisis. This is the same man who opposes every animal protection measure—in good times and bad—that comes up for consideration, including efforts to crack down on dogfighting and cockfighting, to halt the trade in exotic pets, and end the trophy hunting of polar bears. The HSUS will do its best to let the American public, and his constituents, know about his dismissive and hostile attitude toward all animals.

Now, it’s on to the Senate, where there will be a tough battle to advance the legislation. But anyone who’s paying attention knows that the status quo is absolutely unacceptable as a matter of fiscal responsibility and animal welfare. Something must be done to stop the waste and abuse.

Once Bitten, Not Shy to Save Sharks

One thing that strikes me about the fight to stop animal cruelty is that it’s so easy—that being humane simply means choosing another product in the marketplace or an alternate hobby or form of recreation. We don’t see a loss in quality of life, our health, or a tougher economic circumstance when we act in a humane way.

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It’s hardly a sacrifice to choose a cloth coat or fake fur coat over a real fur. You can shoot an elephant with a camera rather than a high-powered firearm. It’s really not that tough to avoid products from factory farms when we have so many alternatives in the marketplace.

That’s why today’s front-page story in The Washington Post about people and sharks resonated so powerfully for me. The Post reported on a group of nine people—all of whom had been the victims of shark attacks—who were lobbying on Capitol Hill to protect sharks from human cruelty. The group was organized by the Pew Environment Group, and even though some are amputees or others who suffered grievous injuries while in waters inhabited by sharks, they cannot stand aside and be silent as people kill sharks for trophies, for their fins for shark fin soup, or for other pointless or questionable purposes. There are an estimated “successful” 100 million human attacks on sharks every year, and these people want to see the massacre stop.

Normally, we don’t have to forgive animals—because they cause us no harm. All we have to do is restrain ourselves from misusing our power over animals. Think puppy mills, dogfighting, seal killing, and so many other horrid abuses of animals. And it’s really no different when it comes to our campaigns against shark finning and shark killing contests.

I wouldn’t quarrel with people who harbored ill will toward animals who attacked them. But to see these people today advocate for animals, in spite of their experiences, is the best expression of the human spirit of goodness, charity, and selflessness.

If these individuals can do good for sharks, shouldn’t the rest of us do what we can to help animals who don’t bother us at all and simply want to be left alone or properly cared for?

A Book to Cleanse Your Life

Here’s a creed at The HSUS: When we treat animals with decency and respect, we create a better, more civil society. And here’s a corollary: When we make conscious food choices, there are a host of good outcomes: for animals, the environment, public health, and our personal health.

Author Kathy Freston touches on that corollary in this follow up to her best-selling "Quantum Wellness." In "The Quantum Wellness Cleanse"—a highly accessible, positive, practical, fast-moving read—she gives us a day-by-day approach to better living to achieve “a higher state of wellness.” In fact, it’s a 21-day dietary regimen that she all but promises will change the way you live and feel.

It sounds austere when you bunch together the proscriptions: a three-week period of abstaining from sugar, caffeine, gluten, alcohol, and animal products. But as she rolls out her plan chapter by chapter, she makes it all seem achievable, and a 100-page glossary of recipes from chefs Tal Ronnen and Lex Townes should help the newly conscious eater. She’s no drill sergeant, and tells us, “my whole approach to health and wellness is that it’s about leaning toward change and taking small steps to support growth: there is no need to force yourself into something that is terribly uncomfortable. Just lean.” And most importantly, by following Kathy's recommendations, you get something in return: a better mind and body.

That’s an approach I like. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Do your best, and do it in increments. The principle behind the 21 days is that it’s not a lifetime commitment, but a commitment that requires some sacrifice and some deprogramming. But in return, you’ll be able to see and feel results.

This is definitely a diet and lifestyle book. But Kathy is passionate about protecting animals, too, and she includes a couple of chapters on the environmental effects of meat-eating and our mistreatment of animals in industrial agriculture. The pull-out quotes from Gail Eisnitz’s "Slaughterhouse" are raw and shocking, and enough to make you explore vegetarian eating for at least 21 days.

In "In Defense of Food," Michael Pollan tells readers, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Kathy Freston provides some different points of emphasis, but leads us in the same direction. The right food choices make for healthier individuals, and a healthier, better, and more humane society.

There Oughta Be Laws Against Exotic Pets

Though it’s still hard to accept any hedging when cruelty is involved, you can understand the reluctance of politicians to take on some issues, such as confinement of animals on factory farms or animal testing.  There are monied interests on the other side, and they work hard to preserve the status quo. It often takes a big lift for us to get that sort of legislation moving, since many politicians want to avoid confronting tough issues.

But there’s no reasonable political explanation for dithering on the issue of keeping dangerous exotic animals as pets. It seems perfectly foolish on its face to keep a lion, a chimpanzee, or a Burmese python as a pet. These wild animals live by the unforgiving code of nature and they are fully capable of killing adults. A woman in Connecticut was severely disfigured earlier this year by a pet chimp. They can make especially quick work of children.

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Every state and the federal government should establish policies to crack down on keeping dangerous wild animals as pets, but some states continue to be outliers, including Missouri, Ohio, and other centers of the exotic pet trade. Oregon did just pass a tough, comprehensive law in 2009, and Congress did enact a law in 2003 restricting the trade in big cats. But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) continues to block the Captive Primate Safety Act, which would ban the trade in chimps and other primates as pets. The House passed the bill earlier this year, as introduced by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and David Vitter (R-La.) are leading the issue in the Senate, but haven’t been able yet to overcome Coburn’s stalling tactics.

Yet, the human toll from wild animals kept as pets continues to mount. Last week, an eight-foot Burmese python escaped from an aquarium, slithered into a bedroom, and asphyxiated a 2-year-old toddler. She was the fourth person to be killed by a pet python in the United States since 2006. It follows an incident earlier this year in Las Vegas, when a 3-year-old boy was squeezed to the point of unconsciousness by an 18-foot reticulated python the father was keeping in their home.

These huge constrictors are not pets. In addition to the serious risks to people, Burmese pythons are upsetting the balance of Florida's ecosystems as they prey on endangered species and even challenge alligators for apex predator status. From a small population of escaped or abandoned pets, Burmese pythons have become established in the Everglades, numbering perhaps 25,000, according to some estimates.

The HSUS applauds Sen. Bill Nelson's proposed legislation (S. 373) and the companion bill introduced by Rep. Kendrick Meek (H.R. 2811) to add pythons to the federal injurious species list, prohibiting their import and interstate commerce for the pet trade. The Congress should not delay in enacting that bill, along with the Captive Primate Safety Act.

State laws are important, and we work aggressively on that front, but the Congress too needs to speak on this subject. These dangerous animals are sold through a national and international network of exotic animal dealers and even over the Internet, and effective policy action must include imports and interstate transport of exotic animals.

Reeling in Shark Tournaments

Some parents believe that spectacles involving animal cruelty are a family affair. To my astonishment, we see adults with children in tow time and again at some large cockfights, and it is hard to believe that witnessing the revelry and the gambling as animals are torn apart in staged fights would not leave emotional scars, as well as a drawing down of the natural reservoir of empathy that children have for animals.

Social opinion may not be as decidedly negative on shark hunting tournaments as on cockfights and dogfights, but the point still holds. There is something desensitizing in having children present as adults whoop it up as they hoist up sharks they’ve killed and put them on display. These are contests kills of wildlife, and when our ProtectSharks campaign staff documented the scene at the Star Island Yacht Club in Montauk, N.Y. recently, there were plenty of kids present.

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In one particularly unsettling scene, a blue shark was hoisted onto the dock, bloodied from being gaffed, his stomach hanging out of his gaping mouth, as children gawked. The message to the kids: killing animals for prizes is a cause for celebration.

It’s the wrong behavior, and the wrong message, and decent people should know better. Sharks are in trouble throughout the world, with perhaps 100 million sharks killed a year in commercial and sport fishing activities. Commercial fishermen kill the sharks for their fins—for soup. And the sport fisherman kill them for trophies. Both are wasteful and cruel. In fact, many of the sharks brought back to the dock at Star Island aren’t even heavy enough to qualify for the tournament and are ultimately killed in vain.

The good news is, we’re finally shining a spotlight on these spectacles and we are gaining allies. People like Jean-Michel Cousteau, Nigel Barker and Johnny Le Coq, cofounder of Fishpond USA, a major recreational fishing products company, are speaking out. And outrage from the community has turned the tide in some towns, like in Fort Myers, Fla., where a shark tournament recently became catch and release.

You too can get involved in helping to stop these cruel events, and we have more information at humanesociety.org/protectsharks.

Our Very Own SWAT Unit

Katrina was a wake-up call to The HSUS and to the rest of the animal protection movement that we had to amp up our disaster response capabilities. From that point forward, I thought we needed a capability to respond not only to natural disasters, but also human-caused crises, such as puppy mills, hoarders, or animal fighting operations.

Last year, under the direction of Emergency Services director Scotlund Haisley, we had more than 40 deployments—one every nine days. And the pace is just as brisk this year.

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Newborns at the Washington puppy mill.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about our intervention in Nebraska to save 200 starving horses, with nearly half of the horses going to our Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch. During this last week, we've had two more.

Yesterday we helped to rescue nearly 400 American Eskimo dogs from a puppy mill in Washington state, where the dogs had been living in deplorable conditions, confined to shopping carts and rusty cages caked with waste. And last week we assisted in the seizure of 374 neglected animals—dogs, horses, exotic birds, rabbits and more—from a ranch in Wisconsin, resulting in criminal animal cruelty charges being filed against the property owner.

In addition to strengthening our disaster response capacity, we've been expanding our presence in the states. We now have staff in 33 states, and we plan on covering every state as soon as resources allow.

Our state directors give us a leg up in learning of crisis situations and then allowing us to coordinate with local law enforcement agencies and local and national animal welfare groups. Many of these operations—as was the case with the Wisconsin raid and with a recent puppy mill bust in Arkansas—are set into motion with investigative work by HSUS staff in the respective states after receiving tips from concerned community members.

There's no group like The HSUS, with the range of tools and resources we have. And one great measure of our work are the tens of thousands of little lives spared from misery and cruelty due to our interventions. Last year alone, The HSUS provided hands-on care to more than 70,000 animals, whether they were rescued from floods or fires, abusive puppy mills or animal fighting operations, spayed and neutered through our programs, or provided medical care through our sanctuaries or rural veterinary programs.

If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to familiarize yourself with the HSUS regional staff nearest you.

Turning the Page for Farm Animals

The HSUS doesn’t have the luxury of focusing exclusively on any one issue. We put a stake in the ground on most of the major forms of widespread or institutionalized cruelty—in the U.S. and increasingly abroad.

Since its beginnings in the 1950s, The HSUS has always taken aim at farm animal abuses. The only difference now is our sense of urgency, since confinement, transport, and slaughter systems have become needlessly harsh and because the number of animals raised for food is so staggeringly large.

If the howls from leaders within the big agribusiness sector are solid indicators, we are making some meaningful progress. And never more so than in 2008, when we broke our Hallmark/Westland slaughter plant investigation and also led the charge to pass Proposition 2 in California.

Last week, Wendy’s agreed to start purchasing a modest but meaningful portion of eggs from cage-free producers. And this morning, one of our staff members spoke at a McDonald’s shareholder meeting urging the company to align itself with other fast-food giants and begin to phase in the use of cage-free eggs at its American outlets, or even to mirror its action in Europe, where McDonald’s has already agreed to switch to 100 percent cage-free whole eggs by next year.

Yesterday, we had major votes on farm animal welfare issues in California—and with great results, thanks in part to the political message sent by the landslide passage of Prop 2. The California Senate, by a vote of 27-12, approved a bill to ban the painful mutilation procedure of tail docking of dairy cattle—and that’s especially significant because California is the largest dairy state in the nation, with 1.8 million of the nation’s 9 million dairy cows. And the California Assembly passed A.B. 1437, a bill to ban the sale of eggs from battery cage operations, for both humane and health reasons.

Both bills have a ways to go, needing approval by the other legislative chamber and then the governor, but these are exciting advances.

There’s also an uptick in publishing on food and farm animal issues, and I’ve just read two books on the subject. The first, "The Face on Your Plate," is by Jeffrey Masson, author of a number of books on the emotional lives of animals. Masson lays out the case against industrial animal agriculture methodically, focusing chapters on the global environmental costs of meat consumption; the emotional capacities of animals raised for food and the cruelty imposed upon them throughout their lives; the disturbing business of fish farming as a source of cruelty and environmental despoliation; the psychological mechanisms by which we shield ourselves from the reality of animal suffering; and his personal experience with what he calls a “veganish” diet.

I found Masson’s chapter on denial most provocative, drawing as it does on his training as a psychoanalyst. Having created a stir in the psychoanalytic community some years ago with his criticisms of Sigmund and Anna Freud, he is no stranger to provocation. When it comes to farm animals, he believes, the range of empathy on the part of the general public is still quite narrow, and he is blunt about the self-deluding practices that many consumers engage in when it comes to thinking about animal welfare and diet. Masson argues his case with passion and intelligence, and "The Face on Your Plate" is an important contribution to a growing body of work on farm animals.

The second work, Amy Hatkoff’s "The Inner World of Farm Animals," focuses on the social, emotional, and intellectual capacities of farm animals, and I provided an afterword for it. I read this fine work in draft form while in the midst of the Prop 2 campaign in California, and I was glad to have before me such a compelling case for improved treatment of farm animals during that crucial time.

Hatkoff’s book is aimed at young audiences, and, drawing on the latest scientific evidence available, it really fills a niche. In chapters devoted to chickens; geese, ducks and turkeys; cows; and pigs, sheep and goats, the author intersperses general accounts with charming vignettes of individual animals.

These books, and all of the other activity on farm animal issues, are markers of a national movement to re-examine where our food comes from, to assess the economic and non-economic costs of industrial animal agriculture, and imagine ways of doing better. As individuals, we must be conscious consumers, and we can do our part to educate ourselves, to influence corporate practices, and to influence policy. When millions of HSUS members take collective action like that, there can be no other outcome except forward movement for farm animals.

Pick Your Hero

The human species has a special kinship with domesticated dogs, and their unwavering faithfulness is part of the explanation. Couple this loyalty with intuition and determination and tremendous athletic abilities, and you get what we’ve come to know at The HSUS as a Dog of Valor. Once again, we are honoring dogs who have heroically stepped up when their help was needed most with our Second Annual Dogs of Valor Awards.

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Baby, one of 15 Dogs of Valor finalists. Choose a favorite >>

This year’s nominees include not only dogs who saved the lives of their caretakers, but dogs who moved beyond that familiar bond and came to the aid of a stranger. Even more touching, many of this year’s nominees joined their homes as rescue dogs—showing that giving a dog a second chance often provides a second chance for us, as well.

After poring over remarkable stories from across the country, our staff has narrowed the field to the top 15 finalists. The stories are full of amazing adventures—ordinary dogs performing extraordinary acts of heroism. This year’s finalists ran through flames, flung themselves into treacherous waters, signaled for help in response to medical emergencies, and searched for help when all hope was lost. Many put their own lives in danger in the process.

We’ve asked a panel of celebrity judges—including Benji, Ron Burns, Randy Pobst and Judge David Young—to choose the Valor Dog of the Year and three runner-ups. But you can also have a say in this year’s winners, helping to pick the People’s Hero.

Before 5 p.m. ET this Friday, May 15, be sure to read about our finalists and vote for the one dog who you think is the most extraordinary. As a bonus, we’ll randomly select one voter to receive a signed, limited edition giclée by HSUS Artist in Residence Ron Burns. Then on May 17 we’ll announce all of the Dogs of Valor winners at humanesociety.org/dogsofvalor.

Horse With No Name No More

Among the many things The HSUS does to advance its mission, one of the most important is our direct response to animals in distress. A few weeks ago I told you about our Emergency Services deployment to rural Nebraska to help in the rescue of more than 200 starving mustangs. Just a few days ago, 84 of these horses arrived at our Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in central Texas—the nation’s most diverse animal sanctuary and the signature holding in our network of direct-care facilities at The HSUS and our sister organization, The Fund for Animals.

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See the horses and support their care >>

Following two weeks of intense emergency care in Nebraska, this Saturday we transported the horses and they all arrived safely at Black Beauty Ranch. After enduring months of neglect and starvation, I imagine they hardly knew that their fortunes had changed so dramatically, trotting out of the trailer to Texas sunshine, rich grasslands, and paddocks filled with fresh hay and clean water.

We’ve just posted photos of each of the horses online and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to browse them. And if you can, please make a special donation to help us rehabilitate these horses. As a way of recognizing your financial support, we’re even offering a unique opportunity for you to name the horses.

Rescue operations like this carry a surprisingly large price tag—with major labor costs for The HSUS and with these formerly neglected horses requiring much-needed treatments and special diets and supplements, the estimated cost of care is $20 per horse per day, or exceeding $300,000 over just six months.

Once the horses are fit and their health restored, they’ll be released to stretch their legs on the more than 1,200 acres that Cleveland Amory designed for just this purpose—to provide a safe home for homeless and abused creatures. Some of the horses will be placed in new homes, while others will spend their remaining years at the sanctuary.

Just last week we announced our plans to develop the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center on the grounds of Black Beauty Ranch, a state-of-the-art operation that will be dedicated to caring for and re-homing horses in need. Perhaps some of these very mustangs will be the first to find new homes as we work to implement even more programs to help homeless, abused and neglected horses.

It’s just another tangible example of what your support allows us to do for animals.

Retire Slaughter of Racehorses

There’s been no stronger critic in the press of business-as-usual in the horse industry than New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden, who received a Genesis Award this year for his commentaries on the subject in 2008. Today, he tackled the issue again in his Sports section column, focusing his readers on the biggest humane issue in the horse racing world: horse slaughter.

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Yesterday, I wrote about the story from the Times reporter Joe Drape about drugging issues—a corrosive practice that begs for reform. But Rhoden is correct that more horses die from being conscripted into the slaughter industry than die of breakdowns, early-age racing, or other problems with the thoroughbred industry. In another Times piece, Jillian Dunham tells of Madeleine Pickens’ departure from the sport and her championing of anti-slaughter efforts after learning about the sordid fate of outcasts from the racing world.

In past years, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association has supported federal legislation to ban slaughter. As the Congress gets ready to address this issue again—thanks to the determined leadership of Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) who have introduced H.R. 503 in the House and Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) who introduced S. 727—the industry’s collaboration with The HSUS and other humane groups is more important than ever. There are approximately 100,000 horses being shipped long distances to slaughter plants in Canada and Mexico, and there’s just no logical defense for the inhumane treatment of these animals.

Last week, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a separate bill, H.R. 1018, by Committee Chairman Rahall and Rep. Raul Grijavla (D-Ariz.), to provide greater protections for wild horses. That’s a critical bill and we hope the full House takes up the bill soon. But we have a two-front battle on our hands and we must also pass H.R. 503 and S. 727, the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act.

Make sure you sign up at www.humanesociety.org to get our email alerts and you’ll know when Congressional action on these issues is imminent. But it’s always a good time to urge your U.S. Representative to back H.R. 1018 and H.R. 503 and to urge your Senators to cosponsor S. 727.