By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA) released the results of their latest study of donations to animal activist groups, revealing an increase in charitable donations to organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) for at least the fourth consecutive year.

In 2007, the latest reporting period available for review, donations rose by 11 percent from the previous year, the AAA reported.
The donations provide animal activist groups with funding to develop wide-ranging activities such as California’s Proposition 2, undercover video operations, legislative initiatives and legal actions, according to AAA, a broad-based coalition of individual agricultural producers, producer organizations, suppliers, packer-processors, private industry and retailers based in Arlington, Va.
“Much of this increased funding is attributed to donors who are not fully aware of the anti-animal use campaigns of many of these groups,” stated AAA executive vice president Kay Johnson Smith. “It’s unfortunate many portray themselves as mainstream and working to improve animal care, yet their funding is primarily spent on campaigns to restrict essential uses of animals such as being raised for food or for research to find cures for diseases.”

Philip Lobo, communications director for the Alliance, told Farm World many of the animal activist groups are guilty of blurring the lines between animal welfare and animal rights. “Animal welfare is about taking care of an animal’s need for shelter, food, water, air flow, and other essential things,” said Lobo. “‘Animal rights’ is really about the (perceived) right of an animal to certain things that may not actually be necessary to its general welfare.”

For example, some animal activists want all chickens and hens to be “free-range” or not enclosed in cages or coops. “To certain species, the right to be outdoors may be valid,” Lobo conceded. “However, chickens generally don’t like to get outside the barn, and hens do not lay eggs in open fields – they associate open areas with being eaten (by predators).”

The biggest impact charitable donations to animal activist groups have on U.S. farmers and ranchers comes in the form of legislative pressure to pass new laws protecting animals used in agriculture at the federal level and in helping spur state measures and ballot initiatives like California’s Prop 8. That state referendum was passed on Nov. 4 by a majority of voters and is predicted by many ag experts to produce dire consequences for California’s poultry industry.

Lobo pointed to several examples of recent and pending legislation affecting animal agriculture at the federal level AAA feels could be influenced by lobbyists and proponents for animal rights. Crusades to adopt more restrictive poultry (Humane Federal Slaughter laws) and livestock (Animal Welfare Act) measures are just two.
“Activist groups want livestock included in the Animal Welfare Act, which was created to protect animals in laboratories, circuses and other (non-farm) environments. Livestock and food animals were specifically exempted from the law, but they want to change that,” said Lobo.

“Another thing you’ll see is increased legislation focusing on the transport of animals, and a bill banning the sale and transport of horses for slaughter, especially for export. That bill has already been introduced to the new Congress.”

Lobo said the near future will also see activist groups trying to implement a federally-observed definition of “animal welfare” that would negatively impact purchases of meat and dairy products by the U.S. military and for school lunch programs. But that’s not all.
“Some of these dollars are going towards (an attempted) repeal of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which adds additional penalties to anyone convicted of attempting to terrorize a business that legitimately and legally uses animals,” Lobo cautioned.

Activist groups realizing the largest percentage of increases in donations included California-based Animal Acres (443 percent, from $300,000 to $1.5 million), the World Society for the Protection of Animals (80 percent, from $18.6 million to $33.5 million) and CIWF (60 percent, from $3 million to $4.9 million, the study revealed.

Donations for PETA remained about the same as in the previous year when including contributions to PETA subsidiary organizations the Fund for Animals and the Doris Day Animal League. The U.S. Humane Society saw contributions increase by five percent.

Though revenue for groups with animal rights and anti-animal agriculture agendas increased in the low double-digits, their total assets expanded by 31 percent, AAA said, due to conservative spending by the groups. Total donations to all national and international animal activist groups totaled around $330 million in 2007, the report stated.

The Alliance research used a variety of sources in compiling the study, including independent examinations of some of the activist groups’ IRS reports for non-profits and the 2008 Animal People Watchdog Report on 150 Animal Charities, published by the newspaper Animal People.