The year 2005 was a disaster from beginning to end. Or maybe it just seemed that way to The HSUS, which deployed its Disaster Animal Response Teams in January after the tsunami rolled through South Asia and then unleashed an army of staff and volunteers to work round the clock through December, trying to clean up the mess that Katrina left.
While disasters, both foreign and domestic, attracted much of the media headlines and a hefty share of our energies this year, there were a number of other animal issues that required our attention during the past 12 months. And with many of them—much like with the disasters that befell our friends along the Gulf Coast and in Asia—we helped turn awful situations for people and animals into something much better.
As the Year of Disasters comes to a close, we asked Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, to select the top 10 animal stories in which The HSUS played a significant role. He pondered the assignment carefully and...came up with 12 stories instead. It was that kind of year.
Without further ado, below are Wayne Pacelle's top 12 HSUS animal stories of the year, beginning with No. 12 and progressing to his top pick of 2005.
12. Gray wolves get a reprieve. In 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a final rule that reclassified the gray wolf—a species with an estimated population of 3,700 in the United States—under the Endangered Species Act, downlisting the animal from endangered to threatened and authorizing more opportunities for lethal control. A coalition of 19 conservation and animal protection groups, including The HSUS, filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior to challenge the reclassification. A U.S. District Court sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the USFWS's reclassification was "arbitrary and capricious because USFWS downlisted major geographic areas without assessing the threats to the wolf..." "It's a great victory for wolf populations within the United States, as well as for other endangered species that are currently listed under the ESA and struggling to make a recovery," noted Patricia Lane, senior attorney in The HSUS's new Animal Protection Litigation section.
11. Colton tigers go to a hew home, Colton owner goes to jail. Not long after California Fish and Game authorities swooped down on John Weinhart, owner of the so-called Tiger Rescue in Colton, California, the judge in the cruelty case ordered that Weinhart could have no contact with the animals on his property. In stepped The Fund for Animals, which assumed care for the 54 adult tigers, leopards, and lions on the Colton property, as well as 20 cubs who were taken to The Fund's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center near San Diego, and began raising funds to construct a permanent sanctuary for the big cats in Northern California. The two-year-old case concluded in February when a jury found Weinhart guilty on 56 separate counts, including 13 counts of felony animal cruelty. That very same week, The HSUS and The Fund, which had merged just two months earlier, moved the final group of seven tigers to their new home at the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) ARK2000 sanctuary in San Andreas, California. In July, Weinhart was sentenced to two years in county jail and five years of probation.
10. HSUS works to ensure pet cloning is not repeated. The first commercially cloned kitty made his public debut in December 2004. Eight months later, the first cloned dog made international headlines, requiring 1,095 eggs from 122 dogs to see the light of day. A company in California has sprouted up for the sole purpose of taking tissue from deceased pets and, for immodest sums, creating clones for bereaved owners. As Wayne Pacelle noted in a published opinion piece, "[W]ith millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs being killed each year for lack of suitable homes, it's hugely frivolous to be cloning departed pets. The challenge is not to find new, absurdly expensive ways to create animals, but to curb the growth of pet populations and to foster an ethic in society that prompts people to adopt and care for creatures in need of loving homes." The HSUS plans to take this battle to the next level in 2006 by helping to introduce a federal bill that would ban the sale of cloned pets.
9. States pull the plug on Internet hunting. A web site in Texas launched a shot heard 'round the world in January when a Lone Star State man became the first "hunter" to kill a confined animal via computer. That killing set off a wave of stories and condemnations that all essentially said the same thing: Internet hunting is cruel, it violates the hunters' code of "fair chase," and it turns wildlife hunting into something akin to pay-per-view slaughter. State lawmakers agreed—13 states, including Texas, have banned Internet hunting, and seven more have introduced bills promising the same. The U.S. Congress also got into the game: The House introduced the Computer-Assisted Remote Hunting Act (H.R. 1558), which prohibits computer-assisted hunting.
8. Michigan mourning dove hunts are canceled. In June 2004, Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm backed away from a campaign promise and signed a bill into law that overturned a 99-year-old ban on hunting mourning doves—an animal that the Michigan House of Representatives had earlier named the state bird of peace. Following the state's first dove hunt in a century, animal advocates rallied around the bird and launched a petition drive to gather enough signatures to place a measure on the 2006 Michigan ballot. In March, those advocates turned in more than 275,000 signatures, 73% more than required. Three months later, the state certified the signatures, which not only placed the anti-dove-hunting measure on the ballot, but also canceled the dove hunts for 2005 and 2006.
7. Officials take a bite out of animal fighting. On March 9, Louisiana state police arrested Floyd Boudreaux, one of the most infamous dog fighters and breeders in the United States. On June 11, federal and state authorities raided what was believed to be the nation's largest illegal cockfighting pit in Tennessee, where 144 people (out of an estimated 1,000 arrested nationwide this year) were placed under arrest for animal fighting. And in November, a state judge in New York ordered James Fricchione—one of the country's most notorious dogfighting kingpins—to pay more than $130,000 for the cost of caring for dogs seized from his operation. These were just three of the hits that the animal fighting underworld suffered this year. Other hits came from state lawmakers: North Carolina passed a felony cockfighting bill, and Washington State did one better by making both dogfighting and cockfighting felony crimes. On the national level, the Senate passed the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, which authorizes felony-level jail time for the interstate and foreign movement of animals used for fighting as well as for the weapons used in cockfighting. The House is expected to follow the Senate's lead soon.
6. Tens of thousands protest Canada's seal hunt. Our Protect Seals campaign shifted into high gear in late March and early April when it sent a team of observers, led by The HSUS's Director of Canadian Wildlife Rebecca Aldworth, to document and expose the bloody baby seal hunt off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. Since then, the campaign has convinced more than 130,000 individuals, as well as hundreds of restaurants and companies, to join our Canadian seafood boycott, which is having its desired effect on the fishermen who conduct the seal hunt in the off-season. The campaign also organized a national "day of action" at Red Lobster restaurants in hopes of convincing the giant seafood chain to use its economic clout to change Canada's mind about the hunt.
5. Laying hens are shown the battery cage door. The HSUS's No Battery Eggs campaign was launched just this past February, but it has already improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of laying hens, who spend their days on factory farms crammed into cages so small they cannot even spread their wings. A number of major companies—including Whole Foods Market (which made an announcement before our campaign launched), Wild Oats Natural Marketplace, Earth Fare, Bon Appetit, and Trader Joe's among them—have heard the suffering of the caged hens this year and have decided to change their practices, moving their businesses toward cage-free egg sales or cage-free egg use.
4. Congress looks to stuff the trophy hunting tax scam. An HSUS investigation into canned hunting blew the lid off a previously unknown tax scam: wealthy trophy hunters who write off the costs of their lavish safaris when donating stuffed mounts to pseudo-museums. The media and Congress reacted with indignation to this scam. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, tightened the loophole for charitable donations as part of the Senate's "Tax Relief Act of 2005," which passed the chamber on November 18. The House's version of the bill did not include the language, so a conference committee will now have to work out the differences, but The HSUS remains hopeful that the new language will become law and will put the tax back in taxidermy.
3. The HSUS and the Fund for Animals join forces. The merger of The HSUS and The Fund for Animals amounted to more than the sum of their parts—much more. Shortly after the combination, the expanded organization launched four major campaigns, targeting factory farms, the fur industry, trophy hunting, and animal fighting and other forms of cruelty. The new HSUS also launched the Animal Protection Litigation section, which has already flexed its legal muscles for wild horses, right whales, birds raised for meat, and many other animals. Finally, The HSUS and The Fund combined forces to create an entirely new entity, the Humane Society Legislative Fund, dedicated to lobbying work at the state and federal levels for laws that truly make the world more humane.
2. Americans wrap their arms around Katrina's animal victims. When the levees that protect New Orleans broke in late August and the city realized the worst consequences of living below sea level, the widespread devastation affected not only people, but their pets. Dogs and cats were stranded on roofs, on cars, in waterlogged homes. When Americans watched their TVs and witnessed the animals' plight, they donated generously to save these pets. The HSUS responded in kind. We opened two massive emergency shelters, one in Louisiana and another in Mississippi. We flew volunteers and staff down by the hundreds. We bought supplies, we bought trucks, we bought trailers. We did everything we could to help rescue and shelter an estimated 10,000 animals along the Gulf Coast. Then we moved into the reunion phase; we devoted countless staff and volunteer hours to help people reunite with their pets. Those efforts have paid off; all told, more than 2,200 animals have been reunited with their families, whether through our efforts or through the efforts of other organizations. And still our work continues: We're rebuilding shelters along the Gulf, creating spay/neuter programs, and launching a humane trapping program to deal with the ongoing homeless pet population in Louisiana. We're also backing new public policies to ensure government responders account for the animals in disasters. Our Katrina work, in short, will last for years to come.
1. America's horses saved from slaughter. Many Americans think of horses not only as our beloved companions, but also as symbols of our rugged past, a partner in taming the wild West. When some in Belgium or Japan think of American horses, they think of meat—and three foreign-owned slaughterhouses in the United States were more than happy to provide those overseas gourmands with the horsemeat they crave. But in June, by an overwhelming vote of 269-158, the U.S. House passed an amendment to the House Agriculture Appropriations bill that would de-fund U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections for one year at the slaughter plants that process horses, effectively shutting down horse slaughter in the United States for 2006. The Senate attached a similar amendment to its own Agriculture Appropriations bill in September, by another landslide of 69-28. That should have made for a happy ending for America's horses, but in conference committee, the amendment apparently came under fire. The HSUS mobilized its horse advocates, who immediately flooded Congress with calls. Those calls had the desired effect: The amendment stayed. Tens of thousands of horses were saved—but for only eight months of next year, instead of the promised 12 months. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, The HSUS immediately began lobbying Congress to make the horse slaughter ban permanent. Stay tuned.
