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HumaneWatch.org project to monitor HSUS activity

By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has launched a website, www.HumaneWatch.org, a watchdog project analyzing the activities of the Humane Society of the United States.
“The website is a blog that I write and edit and a document library that is growing by the day,” said David Martosko, CCF’s director of research. “The idea was to share the contents of our research library about HSUS with the general public and with the media and lawmakers and regulators so that they could see what we’re seeing,” Martosko said.

Most people in America think HSUS is an umbrella group for pet shelters, Martosko said. That’s not true, but most American don’t know that.

This country has too much opinion journalism, and not enough fact-based journalism, Martosko said. This was a cause that demanded facts, figures and documents.

“It is a huge hurdle to climb; you’ve got to convince people that the Humane Society isn’t what it is cracked up to be,” Martosko said. “We thought we were probably the only organization in America who had the research library that could make the case and who was gutsy enough to try it.”

Barely a week into existence, the CCF placed a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. The ad points out that one-half of 1 percent of HSUS’s $100 million budget goes to pet shelters. Meanwhile, according to the ad, HSUS puts over $2.5 million of Americans’ donations into its pension plans.

Besides placing similar types of advertisements, CCF is going to buy ad space on Facebook, on blogs, and keyword advertising on Google.

“I think this is going to be one of those ‘must-read’ websites if you are anywhere in the politics of animal protection,” Martosko said.
That would include anyone involved in animal agriculture, which HSUS is constantly attacking, state by state, Martosko said.

“They want to go state-by-state and force farmers to do things their way,” Martosko said. “And force farmers’ cost of production to go up and force the costs of retail products to go up until it becomes financially too burdensome to produce animal protein.”

Farmers will be made to use production practices in which they don’t believe and that is just the beginning, Martosko said. In Missouri, HSUS is trying to get a measure on the ballot forcing pet breeders to give up all, but five animals used for breeding.

“This will probably pass because they’ve targeted breeders, calling them puppy mills,” Martosko said. “The same way they target livestock farmers by calling them factory farms. They choose the language.”

If this passes it will set a precedent that a state can decide how many animals a farmer can have.

“That’s coming,” Martosko said.

“This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he said. “We’re going to be doing this for a long time. I don’t think we’ll ever run out of material. The HSUS had better get used to the idea that everything they do and say is going to be analyzed now. We’re going to treat them the way they treat farmers, ranchers, fashion designers, and the circus. We’re going to be just as vigilant, just as critical.”
The CCF is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies and consumers, working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

David Martosko will be the keynote speaker at the Ohio Livestock Coalition (OLC) annual meeting on Thursday, April 8, 2010, in Waldo. For more information contact the OLC office by calling Amy Hurst at 614-246-8262 or e-mailing ahurst@ofbf.org

3/3/2010