HSUS and PETA Could be Falling in Popularity

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) may be losing some steam.
HSUS got another –C charity rating because they are continuing to spend a large proportion of their budget on overhead costs.
“The reason you are seeing all of those ads on TV and getting stuff in the mail full of cats and dogs is because they are spending a lot of money doing that,” says Will Coggin, senior research analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom.
Coggin came on AgriTalk earlier this week to discuss what all is going on with two of the largest animal rights groups in the nation.
Donors can visit websites like Charity Watch and Charity Navigator to look at how funding is spent by charities.
“It is a very sizable amount, tens of millions of dollars a year they are spending on marketing themselves as a moderate animal welfare group,” Coggin says of HSUS.
The charity ratings only get into funding. They don’t necessarily look at what organizations’ agendas are.
PETA promotes itself as an organization seeking to liberate animals, but they’ve come under fire for killing them.
A report from a state veterinarian in Virginia indicated that a majority of animals taken in by PETA at the organization’s headquarters were euthanized within 24-hours.
“PETA may have some kind of mental gymnastics that they go through to try and justify this to the public. The fact is PETA has a budget of $30 million and they could find homes for many of these animals they are killing,” Coggin says.
He adds that PETA would rather send people out in lettuce bikinis to urge consumers to go vegan instead of finding adoptive homes for animals.
Both organizations have been getting an increasing amount of funding from the Hollywood crowd.
“I guess the logic there is if you get one rich person to write you a big check – even if you lose support from many Americans who have been writing you $10 and $25 checks before – you can offset that pretty quickly,” Coggin says.
By Wyatt Bechtel
Source: Dairy Today