How to feel about the HSUS..

I was just reading an update on the USARK lawsuit against the HSUS regarding the constrictor ban and someone commented suggesting sending back their junk mail packed with other items to force them to pay the shipping costs. My gut instinct was that anything I can do to make their lives difficult I am all for, but as I was thinking more about it I couldn't just disregard the animals stuck in their care. Right now, I am torn. I hate what they are doing, I hate even more certain things they stand for.

If I could roll back the clock and somehow prevent the organization from every gaining a foothold I would, but that ship has sailed. My dilemma is that it is easy enough to encourage others not to support them or adopt from them, but the animals in their shelters are innocent of all this. I am sure we all know what less funding means for animal shelters, barring the no kill ones anyway. If anyone out there has given this issue enough thought to offer suggestions as to the best way to respond to them I would tremendously appreciate it. Somehow, despite how furious I am at what they are doing I would hate to see the animals in their shelters suffer as a result of their idiotic pursuits.

I hope I am makings sense, I am just having a hard time figuring out my own stance on the matter I guess. I just can't seem to separate the group and its legal agendas from the creatures in its care. :(

HSUS does not operate any animal rescues or shelters. And I believe that the amount of funds that they contribute to shelters across the country equates to less than 1% of their budget.

The HSUS is a political lobbying group and nothing more. Their main agenda is to promote legislation that will end all interaction between humans and animals.

That is very interesting. So as a case in point, if there is a donation bin for the local "humane soceity" adoption facility at a grocery store of something and one were to donate to it, would that be funding the HSUS or assisting the animals in that specific shelter? Where does HSUS get their primary funding from? It is very misleading since their name is plastered all over these places. What would you recommend as the most effective means of spreading information and doing what small part may be possible to work against them?

As far as I'm aware donating to a local shelter or local humane society doesn't help HSUS, however donations to HSUS do not get forwarded to help any shelters; like tbowman said, only about 1%.

It sounds crazy, but I actually prefer PETA to HSUS because at least they are honest about their goals and agendas, regardless of how unpopular the ideas are. Not saying they've never done anything shady, but everyone knows exactly what they stand for. HSUS is sneaky about it and tricks people into donating under false pretenses.

That is good to know. I will have to pass that on to my son. He is 8 years old and nearly as bothered by the whole thing as I am. I recently had to nearly drag him into the house because he was going off on the neighbor about how awful the HSUS is. As I guided him inside he was shouting to them "Don't trust the bosses at the humane soceity! You can trust the workers but never trust the bosses!!". He is a feisty one, but I fully agree with him. It seems like the people working there are uninvolved in their recent abuses of the legal system. It can really be tough to know who to trust these days. On the surface they seem like an organization any animal keeper could get behind, that is until you look further into it and find their true agenda. Just so hard to sit and do nothing to fight back, but what can a regular person do against something like that. Just leaves you feeling helpless which is not a good feeling.

Your local humane society has very likely zero association with the HSUS which uses deceptive fundraising tactics to make it sound like you're supporting the local shelters.

I *do* work at a local humane society (and I've never been more proud to be a vet tech than I have been with all the good I get to do here) and we don't get any HSUS money. The vets and most of the staff here thinks the HSUS sucks. All that money spent lobbying could be doing some *actual* good, like funding low/no cost spay/neuter drives or large scale 'fix our ferals' TNR programs. But no, they think reptiles are icky so they're going to focus on that instead of anything *useful*. /spits

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Originally Posted by DVirginiana

It sounds crazy, but I actually prefer PETA to HSUS because at least they are honest about their goals and agendas, regardless of how unpopular the ideas are. Not saying they've never done anything shady, but everyone knows exactly what they stand for. HSUS is sneaky about it and tricks people into donating under false pretenses.

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I want to hate this, but I am sadly disturbed that you are correct. But a lot of people don't know anything about either organization. I try to educate when/where I can.

@OP I just donate directly to specific shelters. With my time too, when I can. I happen to be a no kill proponent and a feral cat colony caretaker. So HSUS at least pushes that agenda some, IMO, but after I entered the reptile world they are just as dead to me as PETA's crazy BS. Pick an organization or shelter to support.

Ive had to volunteer at a hsus to get hours for school etc. Its not the little animal shelters that are bad, its the people who treat pets as big business who are bad.

If you want to donate to the animals and be sure that it is going to the animals and NOT the dipwads up at the top of the chain, then find a shelter, and donate dog and cat food, or cleaning supplies, or even old blankets. Don't donate money, that is just lining the big business' pockets.

(Dont get me wrong, i hate the hsus as a company, just make sure you're going after the right people.)

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Originally Posted by Daniel.michelle

Ive had to volunteer at a hsus to get hours for school etc.

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This doesn't make sense. HSUS is a nationwide lobbying group, much like the NRA or AARP.

If you volunteered at an animal shelter or rescue group then you did not work for HSUS (thankfully).

I thought it was owned by the hsus. It has the hsus logo.

Still, donate supplies to the shelters, not money to corporate pockets.

Nice little trick of wording they use to get you to give them money, eh? They rely on that to milk kindhearted, unwitting people of their hard earned cash. People who just want to do the right thing, and think they're helping the sweet, fuzzy critters they see on those TV commercials with Sarah McLachlan end up supporting one the the worst ANTI pet groups out there. Donate to or volunteer at your local non-kill shelter, by all means. They have nothing to do with the HSUS, are almost elusively locally funded, and most of them can use the help. Make sure you spread the word about HSUS too, so that sweet old lady with the cats isn't swindled into spending her pension on government lobbyists.

The HSUS(Humane Society of the United States) is NOT a shelter, nor does it operate shelters.
The *insert local name here* Humane Society is a shelter. So when you see the "Clay County Humane Society" or the "Pittsburgh Humane Society", those are shelters. They probably never see even a tiny thin dime of money from HSUS or ASPCA OR PETA.

Humane Society shelters are not the HSUS.
Local rescues and shelters are not the HSUS.

Your son is wrong, because he has confused the actual shelter with the big money lobby group. The HSUS counts on that confusion so that they get all the money from donations, and the local shelters struggle to make ends meet.

The HSUS even charges a shelter a "fee" in order for the HSUS to come in and give them advice on how to run the shelter "better", which ends up being a printed booklet given to the shelter about how to fund raise. That's sort of the opposite of "helping shelters" imo.

If you want to help the local shelters and rescues, give them what they need. You can also ask the shelter bosses about how they are affiliated with the HSUS national lobby group organization. I would bet they say they have nothing at all to do with them.

check out humanewatch.org... They regularly post info about the HSUS and their false fund raising practices. I believe that HSUS is either under investigation about false fundraising or at least there are several states trying to get them investigated.

Donate locally and do research on local charities as well before donating. I know one in my area had some serious issues with higher ups cooking the books... so it pays to make sure your donation will be used the way you want it to.

I think HSUS donates maybe 1% of money raised to humane societies... Disgusting.

several states are calling for investigation on them. Depending on the outcome, I believe HSUS are going to get whats coming to them in the near future

Thank you so much for the clarification guys!! Really, I appreciate it tremendously because I want to cut and prevent any ties to the HSUS in the future. Fortunately I have never donated to them, but I was never in a position to have expendable income to do so until recently. I could see myself wanting to help the shelters but I cannot support HSUS. I was concerned that by turning my back on them I would be doing the same to the animals so desperately needing rehoming. I have the same conflicted thoughts about places like big chain pet stores. Of course I don't want to support what they are doing, but boy do I have a hard time walking away from the animals in their stores who have done nothing wrong and need no less help simply due to their captors being horrible. It can be a catch 22 at times, so I am thrilled to hear that at least that isn't the case with this issue. It makes me wonder, since I have never seen any fundraising efforts by HSUS, only the coin jars the shelters put out. How does HSUS raise funds anyway? I don't want to be lured into it. I will also explain all this to my son right now. I had already told him the shelter employees have no say in the HSUS policies, we were all sort of under the impression that the shelters were owned by HSUS but independently run, if that makes sense.

So another question, why on earth do the shelters put the same identifier? Why use names like "Phoenix Humane Society" if they barely receive any funding from them? Why not "Phoenix Animal Shelter", or does the HSUS somehow bribe them into using the same title so that they can maintain their appearance of being tied to something that actually helps.

Thank goodness though that people are starting to look closer at the organization. I do sincerely hope they are coming up on some very unpleasant times. These days, I think USARK and various herpetological associations are the only groups I can support in good conscience.

The local and regional/county humane societies had their names before HSUS started so HSUS is at fault for false advertising. I would also guess that the coin jars inside the local shelters are for funding that local shelter only. I am sure that any shelter "lucky" enough to get money from HSUS has to show the HSUS logo on their building and try to push the HSUS BS on people.

A horrible part of this, is that HSUS employees often now have LEO powers as animal control officers. They are paid out of people's taxes for this so called "service."

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Originally Posted by Monty's_Mom

A horrible part of this, is that HSUS employees often now have LEO powers as animal control officers. They are paid out of people's taxes for this so called "service."

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WHAT???? This can't be right. Where is this happening and how is it even possible???

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Originally Posted by Monty's_Mom

A horrible part of this, is that HSUS employees often now have LEO powers as animal control officers. They are paid out of people's taxes for this so called "service."

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Ah, no. ACO's are county/local government employees and in most jurisdictions are sworn LE. They are not HSUS employees.

HSUS employees have zero authority. They are not government employees and do not have any right to search and seizure, nor to enforce laws, nor to arrest or punish offenders.

They do often horn in on busts by the ACTUAL authorities, saying that they need to be on hand to care for the animals seized.
So the way that works is... the local Animal Control/Sheriff decides to go investigate a cat hoarder(example). HSUS gets wind of this and comes in saying "We are prepared to care for all those cats when/if you have to remove them from the home. We're very experienced!" The local people usually believe the HSUS. So now the sheriff and the HSUS(with t-shirts emblazoned with the HSUS logos) go to the home, and the HSUS makes sure to get plenty of footage of them "removing" the animals and if possible, pictures and video of bad conditions(even if they have to manufacturer some).
Now, you'd think at this point "Yay! HSUS is taking great care of the poor itty kitties!" but NOW, HSUS will haul all those poor rescued kitties to a local shelter and hand them over for the SHELTER to care for, at the SHELTER's expense and manpower. HSUS puts out no money to help care for them and doesn't do anything but make sure to get on TV.

They raise funds with TV ads, mail spam, online spam. Most of their funding comes from people who think they are helping animals in a shelter(because all the pictures and wording makes you think they have all these shelters and animals).

In truth, mostly what they do is try to pass legislation that outlaws pets, makes it more difficult to own pets, and legislation that makes conditions WORSE for pets. They were the main push behind the hardly-heard-of bill that would have outlawed ALL animals except livestock and cats and dogs(and rabbits I think?). So all the small pets, reptiles, fish, birds, etc would have been illegal.

They are lawyers. End of story. The CEO Pacelle gets well paid to tell lies and think up new ways to suck money out of people. They raised MILLIONS from people after Hurricane Katrina, and spent none of it on the animals rescued. They got sued by LOusiana who settled out of court after the HSUS said they would build a shelter for the county. No word on i that shelter was ever built, and even if it was, it only cost a few hundred thousand, versus the millions they took in on the Katrina name.

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Originally Posted by Monty's_Mom

The local and regional/county humane societies had their names before HSUS started so HSUS is at fault for false advertising. I would also guess that the coin jars inside the local shelters are for funding that local shelter only. I am sure that any shelter "lucky" enough to get money from HSUS has to show the HSUS logo on their building and try to push the HSUS BS on people.

A horrible part of this, is that HSUS employees often now have LEO powers as animal control officers. They are paid out of people's taxes for this so called "service."

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Originally Posted by MarkS

WHAT???? This can't be right. Where is this happening and how is it even possible???

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Ah, no. ACO's are county/local government employees and in most jurisdictions are sworn LE. They are not HSUS employees.

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

HSUS employees have zero authority. They are not government employees and do not have any right to search and seizure, nor to enforce laws, nor to arrest or punish offenders.

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I understand the confusion here with HSUS and animal control. Not all local humane societies are benevolent organizations; many rank up right up there with the evil of HSUS. What I think Monty's Mom meant but mistook is that some jurisdictions turn their animal control over to the local humane society. I don't know whether this means some of the local human society employees become animal control employees or if just the local Humane Society has full authority over animal control. It doesn't really matter though as the end result is the same. Some of these local humane societies have been way more successful in banning exotics (including ALL snakes over 3') in their jurisdictions than HSUS has ever dreamed.

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Originally Posted by kiiarah

That is very interesting. So as a case in point, if there is a donation bin for the local "humane soceity" adoption facility at a grocery store of something and one were to donate to it, would that be funding the HSUS or assisting the animals in that specific shelter?

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Originally Posted by Daniel.michelle

Ive had to volunteer at a hsus to get hours for school etc.

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Local shelters and humane societies have absolutely no affiliation with the "Humane Society" of the United States. HSUS has zero animals under their care. Their name is, in essence, a full blown lie. They are not a shelter; they are the equivalent of what PETA is only the general public doesn't know because of how deceptive their name and campaign is.

All of that is just infuriating. Are there really places they have banned snakes over 3 feet?? I am so fed up with them b.s.ing everything into thinking their false agenda is honorable. Is there anything we can do as individuals to expose them or make things more difficult for them at all? :mad: They seem almost untouchable, especially given the confusion over who exactly they even are and what they control. If I wanted to pursue some kind of activism, what could I pursue that would make any impact?

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Originally Posted by kiiarah

All of that is just infuriating. Are there really places they have banned snakes over 3 feet?? I am so fed up with them b.s.ing everything into thinking their false agenda is honorable. Is there anything we can do as individuals to expose them or make things more difficult for them at all? :mad: They seem almost untouchable, especially given the confusion over who exactly they even are and what they control. If I wanted to pursue some kind of activism, what could I pursue that would make any impact?

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I think this was a town in Kansas but am not positive on the location.

Someone mentioned HumaneWatch.org earlier... this a great site that does their best to expose HSUS. I think someone also mentioned the lawsuits or charges being leveled at them now for misleading the public so they are not untouchable.

Seriously though, read through HumaneWatch if this is something that interests you. Besides the HSUS organization itself, the ties that many of the top executives have are eye-opening. Everyone has their own thoughts on activism. Personally, I think the best way to get involved is through education, even just sharing with friends and family in a non-nuisance kind of way. Years ago my sister wanted to work for HSUS because she didn't really understand their true mission... that got squashed very quickly.

They've been found guilty of paying witnesses etc. before in court cases too.. just sleazy people.

There are many cities that already have laws on the books to ban certain species of exotics, snakes, etc. you just have to check your local laws. These laws can be pushed by organizations such as HSUS and ASPCA, but are also spear-headed by fear-crazed locals that don't know anything and politicians eager to be seen as "saving' their constituents from the evil snakes.

Joining USARK is a good idea if you are interested in supporting your rights as a reptile keeper... Even if you don't want to join, follow their FB page. They do regular updates on laws that are up for vote in various states that might threaten reptile ownership.

Some jurisdictions do have county shelter employees trained and sworn with police powers to investigate animal cruelty cases. They also coordinate with the county humane society to evaluate and document the condition of the animals in hoarder, abuse and dog fighting cases. The privately run shelters primarily run on either donations or grants from places like the Morris Foundation and other charity foundation. The Humane Society of the United States is a lobbying organization, which has been pointed out already.

I used to work as a tech at a no-kill animal shelter. We had grant writers who would apply for spay/neuter grants, grants to upgrade our facility, ect. We also worked with breed specific rescues to place purebreds that we would find at the county kill shelter, if our own shelter was full. Thankfully we had open access to the kill shelter to pull animals right before kill time; and let me tell you, many days I left the shelter in tears, because there were only so many open slots at our shelter, and adoptable animals were going to be killed right after we left.

I guess what I am trying to say, just because you have issues with the Humane Society of the United States, please dont let that stop you from donating either your time, or funds to the local no-kill shelters. That money goes into your local community, and helps the local animals find homes. i know that the reason that you are on boards like this mean that you care, and that you want the best for all pets, not just the ones with scales, but the ones with fur, as well.

So do the people at your local shelter. They are the ones that deserve your time, and your funds.

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Originally Posted by Jabberwocky Dragons

I think this was a town in Kansas but am not positive on the location.

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I know at least that Andover, KS a suburb of Wichita has that ban in effect. It is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by artgecko

Joining USARK is a good idea if you are interested in supporting your rights as a reptile keeper... Even if you don't want to join, follow their FB page. They do regular updates on laws that are up for vote in various states that might threaten reptile ownership.

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I completely agree, joined up a couple of days ago. Been meaning to for a while so I am very relieved to be able to call myself a member at long last. Hopefully I can budget a higher monthly donation soon. ;)

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Originally Posted by lorrainesmom

I guess what I am trying to say, just because you have issues with the Humane Society of the United States, please dont let that stop you from donating either your time, or funds to the local no-kill shelters. That money goes into your local community, and helps the local animals find homes. i know that the reason that you are on boards like this mean that you care, and that you want the best for all pets, not just the ones with scales, but the ones with fur, as well.

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I absolutely will. :gj: That was my main concern, that I don't think I could bear to refuse the local shelters help but would hate to help the HSUS in any way, so I am thrilled that is not a concern. Both of my cats were adopted from local human society shelters. I could never have walked away from them. I would love to volunteer in the future but between work and two young children being homeschooled, time is really limited right now. Maybe soon the boys will be old enough that we could all volunteer together, make it part of their curriculum. :)