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Redemption
The Book HSUS and PETA Don’t Want You to
Read
The Consumer Freedom interview with Redemption
author Nathan Winograd
Nathan Winograd is a Stanford Law School
graduate and a former criminal prosecutor. He has
also presided over
America’s two most successful experiments in
what’s become known as
the “No-Kill” animal shelter movement. At
SPCAs in San Francisco and
Tompkins County, New York, Winograd showed that
No-Kill animal
sheltering -- the brand of hands-on animal care
that deep-pocketed
animal “rights” groups like PETA and the
Humane Society of the
United States (HSUS) ironically oppose -- can
work.
In his book Redemption,
Winograd argues that the idea of pet
overpopulation in America is a
myth. PETA cites this “overpopulation” as the
reason it kills nearly
90 percent of the dogs and cats it takes in. And
the Humane Society
of the United States (HSUS) literally wrote the
book on a system of
animal sheltering that seems resigned to killing
healthy pets out of
sheer laziness, instead of looking for
alternatives.
After we read
Redemption, we had some tough questions for
Winograd. And he
graciously agreed to answer them.
CCF: Right on the cover of your book, you
call the idea of pet overpopulation in the United
States a "myth."
Are you saying that there are enough homes for
every healthy,
unwanted pet? Winograd: Yes. Based on the number
of existing
households with pets who have a pet die or run
away, more homes
potentially become available each year for cats
than the number of
cats who enter shelters, while more than twice as
many homes
potentially become available each year for dogs
than the number of
dogs who enter shelters.
Put another way,
every year more families are potentially looking
to bring a new dog
or cat into their home than the animals that enter
shelters. And the
market of homes (the number of homes which do not
currently have a
dog or cat but will acquire one) is expanding
rapidly. If shelters
increased their market share by just a few
percentage points, we
could be a No Kill nation right now. But we are
far from it.
As a movement, the humane
community has accepted the idea that the best
shelters can do for
homeless animals is to adopt out some and kill the
rest. To try to
avoid criticism for this, to justify a paltry
number of adoptions,
these groups have perpetuated the myth that there
are simply more
animals than homes, something that is patently
false (even though
most people believe it).
Redemption offers a stunning indictment of the
Humane Society
of the United States (HSUS). Why does such a
wealthy animal rights
organization appear so disinterested in saving the
lives of cats and
dogs?
HSUS is the wealthiest humane organization in the
United
States. Since its founding in the mid-1950s, it
has grown in scope,
size, and influence. It claims the support of some
10 million
members, while its conference which caters to
shelters is currently
the largest nationwide. Given that, one would
predict, expect and
hope that it would be at the forefront of the No
Kill movement,
leading the way to ending the systematic killing
of dogs and cats in
U.S. shelters. But instead HSUS has been one of No
Kill’s fiercest
and most obstinate opponents. One of the
fundamental downsides of
bureaucracies is their focus on self-preservation
at the expense of
their mission. Agencies like the Humane Society of
the United States
have ignored No Kill success and put the interest
of animals --
indeed their very lives -- aside.
What
would HSUS stand to lose if American animal
shelters all moved toward
a “No Kill” philosophy tomorrow?
Other than a few employees with a
deplorable history of supporting the unnecessary
killing of dogs and
cats in shelters, and perhaps some longstanding
relationships with
shelter directors mired in killing, absolutely
nothing. In fact, they
would be hailed as pillars of compassion by the
American public. That
is what makes their position on this issue
(historical and
presently) so disturbing.
If you had HSUS's resources ($200 million in the
bank
and $150 million of income this year), how much
progress could you
make toward reforming our nation's animal
shelters? What would you
do first? More money isn’t necessary to end the
killing of savable
dogs and cats in shelters. In fact, most of the
programs and
services necessary to save lives would actually
cost these shelters
less than what they are currently spending to
warehouse animals and
then kill them.
For
example, adoptions generate revenue, they generate
good will (which
could be leveraged for future donations), and they
lead to greater
word-of-mouth publicity which leads to more
adoptions and more
revenue. Killing animals, by contrast, not only
costs money (to end
an animal’s life and dispose of the body), but
it also makes the
public less satisfied with the job a shelter is
doing, especially as
the shelter blames that same public for the
problem. These are the
people a shelter needs to embrace (in the form of
adopters,
volunteers, and donors) if it’s going to save
animals’ lives.
Volunteers and foster homes also
provide subsidized services, in which private
individuals and rescue
groups care for shelter animals at no cost to
taxpayers. It is a
cost-free way to save a great number of dogs and
cats. But too many
shelters turn these people away at the front door
-- while the
animals they are trying to help go out the back
door in a body bag.
In
short, animals are not dying because of lack of
money in the vast
majority of U.S. cities.
Take the municipal animal shelter in
Austin, Texas for example. In 2000, its budget was
$2.9 million. Now
it’s $4.8 million. But the number of dogs and
cats killed in Austin
increased during this time. PETA spends around $30
million every
year, but claims it can’t save 2,000 dogs and
cats. Following the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Americans
donated over $32 million
to the Humane Society of the United States,
specifically to help the
dogs and cats trapped in New Orleans. They spent
only a fraction of
that money on the problem. What did they do with
the rest?
You have a pretty blunt
assessment of PETA's long-standing habit of
killing animals instead
of working to place them in adoptive homes. Why
should the public
believe PETA's line about saving pigs and chickens
if it's not
willing to start with dogs and cats?
This, to me, is the great betrayal in PETA’s
position. If groups like PETA openly champion the
killing of dogs and
cats in shelters, if they do not take the position
that killing dogs
and cats is inherently unethical and should be
condemned, how do
they expect to convince the public that pigs,
chickens, and other
animals -- with whom Americans do not have a close
relationship --
should have more protections?
If the animal rights community, which claims to be
the
standard bearer for what our relationship with
animals should be,
approves of the idea of killing millions of
animals in shelters,
doesn’t that undermine their ultimate goals? The
old adage “With
friends like these, who needs enemies?” could
not be more true.
What's beneath the
surface of PETA's apparent hypocrisy here? Why do
you think the group
doesn't endorse a “No Kill” philosophy, or at
least stop tasking its
employees with killing pets?
I can only think of one possibility.
PETA’s founder, Ingrid Newkirk, previously
worked at the Washington
Humane Society in Washington, DC, a shelter that
has historically
been the subject of public criticism for high
rates of shelter
killing. In fact, at a time when Stanford
University was having
great success with its program to save homeless
cats on its campus,
the Washington Humane Society opposed my effort to
create a similar
program on the Georgetown University campus. In
the end, Georgetown
sided with the Washington Humane Society, which
embraced a campaign
of extermination.
Few
animal activists who follow PETA’s lead on the
companion animal issue
are probably aware that its founder’s former job
was to kill homeless
dogs and cats in a shelter that had a poor record
for saving lives.
Isn't it a bit hypocritical for groups like PETA
and HSUS to be
front-and-center in the Michael Vick story? Nobody
with half a brain
supports dog fighting, but isn't killing dogs out
of sheer
convenience just as nasty?
The thought of what those poor dogs went through
is
personally very painful to me. If the public
pressure created by
these groups led to Vick’s suspension from the
NFL, a positive thing
has been accomplished. If it leads to greater
penalties for people
who do this, again that is positive. And as a
former Deputy District
Attorney who prosecuted animal cruelty cases, I
believe that if
Michael Vick is found guilty, he should be
punished severely.
But while PETA applauds the
prosecution of Michael Vick, it fought similar
efforts by a
prosecutor in North Carolina who went after PETA
employees for
needlessly killing animals and dumping their
bodies in supermarket
trash bins.
And
while PETA condemns Michael Vick for killing Pit
Bull-type dogs, PETA
itself is on record saying that each and every Pit
Bull entering a
U.S. animal shelter should be killed as a matter
of policy --
including healthy and friendly dogs. By its
actions, words, and
deeds, PETA is condemning hundreds of thousands of
dogs annually to
death.
HSUS is
no better. HSUS once called the mass extermination
of alley cats the
only “practical and humane” solution. Why is
the needless killing of
millions of cats “humane,” especially in the
face of non-lethal
lifesaving alternatives?
In your book, you mention briefly the
connection between shelter adoption rates and
retail pet sales. Can
you flesh this out a bit? Does this indicate that
there are plenty
of homes for adoptable animals?
When San Francisco became the first city in
the U.S. to save all healthy, homeless dogs and
cats, and was
effectively talking to the public about pet
adoption, there was not a
single pet store left in the city selling dogs and
cats. It didn’t
start out that way, but that was the result. Why?
Because they
couldn’t compete with the SPCA.
Americans want to do the right thing, and
they saw shelter adoption as a way to save lives
and bring the joys
of animal companionship into their homes. By
contrast, when you look
at cities with high levels of shelter killing, you
also tend to see
large numbers of pet stores.
This tells me that the animals in these
communities aren’t dying because “there are
too many dogs and cats,
and not enough homes” -- as the shelter
directors want you to
believe. If that were the case, you wouldn’t see
so many pet
retailers. They exist because there’s a market
demand for dogs and
cats. And because the shelters are doing a lousy
job at adopting to
the community.
You
make a pretty convincing case that whatever pet
"overpopulation"
exists in the U.S. is the fault of poorly run
shelters, not the
public that typically gets blamed for creating the
problem. But
surely there's something the public can do to help
reverse the
current situation. What's your bottom-line advice
for John Q.
Consumer?
We need to
reclaim these institutions. The agencies that the
public expects to
protect homeless pets are instead killing more
than five million of
them every year. Lifesaving alternatives have
existed for decades.
But too many of these agencies remain mired in the
“kill” philosophy
of the past, unwilling to explore and adopt
methods that save lives.
This is a breach of their public trust.
We need to reform animal shelters
through lobbying, by making demands at the local
government level,
and by withholding contributions until they
change. We need to hit
them right back for advocating killing by using a
tactic they
understand: the boycott.
Do not donate to HSUS or any other shelter or
agency which
refuses to embrace a No Kill philosophy. Let them
know that when they
decide to do right by the animals, you will be
ready to open your
checkbook.
In the end, there may be an overpopulation problem
in the
United States, but it is not the one we
traditionally define. What we
are actually suffering from -- what is actually
killing a high number
of animals -- is an overpopulation of lazy and
complacent shelter
directors. A culture of lifesaving is not possible
without wholesale
regime change in shelters, and in national animal
protection groups.
So the most important single act -- and the
crucial first step -- is
to fire the current leadership of shelters across
the country. That
is what the public should demand.
Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation
and the No Kill Revolution in America is available
online from
Amazon.com and other retailers. Every copy sold is
guaranteed to
raise the blood pressure of the wrong-headed
activists who run PETA
and HSUS.
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