Australian yellow tail wines took a licking this week when animal rights/vegan Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) announced yellow tail was contributing $100,000 to HSUS!
Amazing. Doesn’t yellow tail
know HSUS works against hunting kangaroos and fishing and hunting in
Australia and everywhere? Don’t they know HSUS constantly works against
raising animals? Say adios to sheep farming and cattle ranching in the
outback!
Customers started commenting, unhappily, on yellow tail’s Facebook page — which I also did. But I also emailed a complaint (as can you too!) to yellow tail’s distributors at info@wjdeutsch.com
I explained that I have
bought and enjoyed yellow tail wine but am very disappointed in their
choice of HSUS as the recipient of such a generous donation and hoped
they would reconsider.
yellow tail replied it had
received complaints from others but would “still honor our monetary
commitment to the HSUS, but now we are specifically directing our
$100,000 donation to HSUS’ Animal Rescue Team, which launch
on-the-ground missions to rescue animals in peril. The HSUS Animal
Rescue Team is a leading disaster response agency for animals,
contributing millions of dollars to rebuild animal shelters destroyed in
natural disasters, responding to floods, fires, and other disasters. We
may not always agree with 100 percent of what an organization
represents, but rescuing animals displaced from natural disasters is a
cause we support.”
Goodness, these people are slow!
Of course I agree that caring
for neglected animals is a good thing. However, I do not believe that
money sent to HSUS actually ends up providing this benefit. If I did, I
wouldn’t waste my time bothering yellow tail!
And so I tried again.
“Thank you very much for your
kind response to my letter,” I wrote. “But again, no one trusts HSUS
anymore to do what it says it will do. Your funds will be wasted.
Perhaps you should give that donation to the REAL emergency response
team. HSUS is NOT part of this team. The
Director of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) Animal
Welfare Division recently issued a clarification on response efforts
for animals suffering due to the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. This
AVMA statement detailed the structure of the official response team, the
Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH) and explained, ‘HSUS/HSI/HSVMA
have elected to deploy on their own to Haiti and are working
independently and are no longer a part of the ARCH.’”
“Perhaps,” I suggested to yellow tail, “you should contact the AVMA?” I continued, “In
fact, a consumer protection group has called for HSUS to return funds
raised on Haiti due to their dismal record with disaster response. Their
response to the Katrina disaster was so poor it resulted in an
investigation of HSUS by the Louisiana Attorney General.”
And I closed with, “Again, I
hope you will work with your organization to ensure your generous
donation is actually used to help animals. The ARCH team would be a
great choice — but HSUS is not!”
Grab your keyboard and write to yellow tail at info@wjdeutsch.com, post on their Facebook page and, while you’re at it, join this great group battling HSUS. It’s almost 18,000 people!
UPDATES:
February 26, 2010: Another
corporate sponsor of HSUS, Pilot Travel Centers which caters to
America’s truckers, dropped HSUS after receiving complaints. Pilot
explained it is a “strong supporter of agriculture interests” and would
strike HSUS as an acceptable recipient of employees’ charitable
contributions. It stated Pilot “will not support any organization that
has an agenda that works against agriculture interests.”
And, in March, another HSUS contributor, Hills, which makes Science Diet, severed their relationship to HSUS after receiving lots of complaints. More good news: Hills will continue donating pet food to shelters which receive less than one half of one percent of HSUS’s income. Fido and Fluffy should sue!