Food for thought, Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare

Info found here.
I found it VERY interesting.

Animal Rights?.......WRONG!

For the amount of money raised and spent by U.S. animal rights groups
every animal in America ought to have its own condominium.

Why then, do more than 15 million pets a year end up in under funded local humane shelters with overworked staff who are frustrated that they cannot even adequately feed and care for them?

Animal rights activists cannot blame researchers, hunters, circus owners, meat-eaters, fur-and leather-wearers, breeders, fishermen or zoo keepers for the sorry condition of shelter animals. It is the animal rights movement which has turned its back on the suffering of these animals.

But the animal rights agenda goes far beyond the narrow issues. Animal rights groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) want a nation-wide ban on fishing, for example, and an end to all meat eating, which they consider cruel. Opposing hunting is just a way to get a foot in the door. PETA is so committed to the rights of animals that it even advocates an end to keeping dogs and cats as pets.

The animal rights movement's main goal is not, and never has been, to save or help animals.
Its mission is to market its philosophy and lifestyle to the American public. Shelter animals are sacrificed in the short-term so that animal rights groups can gain the money, power and influence needed to sell their view in the long-term.

ARA Tactics :

ARA (Animal Rights Activists) propaganda routinely makes fictitious claims, in order to win support, and of course money, from people who have no access to other information. They utilize terrorism to propagate their narrow, ignorant views as fact to uninformed members of the public in order to achieve their goals.

The Department of Justice says there have been more than 313 instances of animal-rights violence in the United States.

The A.L.F.(Animal Liberation Front), which has caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to U.S. research labs, factory farms and fur farms in 15 years of existence, has been branded a "terrorist" organization by the justice department and the FBI. Alex Pacheco, chairman of PETA, told The New York Times,

'Arson, property destruction, burglary and theft are 'acceptable crimes' when used for the animal cause.'

Rodney Coronado, a member of the Animal Liberation Front, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 57 months in prison for the destruction of an animal diagnostics research lab at the University of California, Davis in April, 1987 (total damage estimates: $4.5 million).

PETA sent $ 45,200 to Coronado's 'support committee,' which was a sum 15 times greater than what PETA spent on animal shelters nationwide in all of that year.

This is what happens when social movements self-righteously believe they are so obviously correct that they may break the law with impunity and attack indiscriminately both persons and property who get in their way.

ARA taking care of themselves, not animals :

PETA :
Eleven million animals are destroyed annually for lack of facilities. Yet PETA spent less than $ 3,955 of its $ 12 million in fiscal 1995 and $ 6,100 of its $ 10.9 million in fiscal 1996 for shelter programs, according to its nonprofit tax forms filed with the IRS.

So what has PETA done to help these homeless, hungry and sick animals and others that suffer and die in shelters each year? According to its FY 1995 tax documents, next to nothing.

Less than $5,000, or .03%, of PETA's $13.4 million budget was allocated to shelter or spay and neuter programs in the U.S.

90% of the $1,485,076 PETA donated, or $1.3 million, went to itself-that is, PETA's satellite offices in Germany, The Netherlands, and England. Next to PETA's overseas offices, the next largest donation, $45,200, was sent to animal rights terrorist Rodney Coronado to help him avoid going to jail for fire bombing medical research facilities. Coronado is now serving a 57 month jail sentence.

The Humane Society :
HS, for its part, raises and spends close to $50 million, enough to bank roll at least one well-run animal shelter in every state and have enough left over to spay, neuter, feed and save the lives of tens of thousands of dogs and cats every year. So how many HS-run animal shelters benefit from the HS budget? ......None.

The Humane Society does not operate a single shelter, despite a $ 40 million budget.

Yet ...

The HS managed to pinch enough of its precious pennies to pay its president, Paul Irwin, $237,831 and its chief executive officer, John Hoyt, $209,051 in addition to providing tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses to the pair.

These figures alone should be enough to convince you that your time and money would be better spent elsewhere.

ARA and medical research :

Would you be willing to sacrifice your child's life so a rat may live?

That is what the ARA are asking of you. Without animal research, life saving treatments and vaccines for everything from diabetes to polio would not exist. Most Americans support and benefit from medical research involving animals. In the United States all drugs must be tested in animals before being tested by human beings. Typically, animal rights activists are often ignorant of even basic scientific and medical concepts.

Animal research has provided

• 50,000,000 prescriptions for antibiotics
• 30,000,000 prescriptions for asthma
• 3,000,000 operations under local or general anaesthetics
• 180,000 diabetics kept alive with insulin
• 90,000 cataract operations
• 60,000 joint operations
• 15,000 coronary bypasses
• 10,000 pacemakers implanted
• 6,000 heart valve repairs or replacements
• 4,000 congenital heart defects corrected
• 2,500 corneal transplants
• 2,000 kidney transplants
• 400 heart or heart/lung transplants

ARA says "Most animals used in research are cats, dogs or monkeys."....Not true!

The real figures are:

• Rats and mice 83%
• Fish , birds and reptiles 12%
• Other small mammals 3%
• Large mammals (cows, etc.) 1.3%
• Dogs and cats 0.4%
• Primates 0.2%

* NOTE.....Animal Welfare is not the same as Animal Rights. Animal Welfare provides information for improved animal care and use in many fields. Animal Welfare's goal is the improvement of the standard of living of ALL animals, no matter their purpose. Animal Welfare is also of value to legislative and regulatory authorities and other organizations responsible for the welfare of animals. Animal Welfare does not support/condone the beliefs or tactics of the ARA.

Please DO NOT support Animal Rights Activists.