The polite way to describe my opinion of the Humane Society of the United states is 'Im not a fan'.
For those of you who are unaware, HSUS has absolutely nothing to do with 'the Humane Society' that rescues animals in your community. HSUS has nothing to do with rescuing animals at all-- they give less than 1% of their income to shelters. Technically, against rescuing animals-- they wanted Michael Vicks dogs killed (while they became BFFs with Vick), but thankfully, some people know better than to listen to HSUS and the dogs are okay.
HSUS is functionally a political group with a habit of capitalizing on our love of animals and pictures of (and suffering of) homeless dogs and cats to fund their political moves-- pretty much stopping animal farming, all the way down to egg production, and of course, no animal research.
Happily, there are groups like 'Humane Watch' who are doing something about HSUS. Most of the things they do are the usual stuffy political things, but Humane Watch can be lighthearted too. I LOVE their new HSUS spoof commercial:
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Teh puppehs... it's all about teh puppehs....
The Majority of HSUS's work is done in opposition to Factory Farming. Not exactly the most defensible practice.
Also, Humane Watch is an Industry Front Group. Good criticisms of HSUS don't come from people who are financially vested in Factory Farming.
Just sayin'!
What does that have to do with shelter animals?
Are you saying that Humane Watch is lying and HSUS does donate an appreciable amount of their income to shelter animals?
Because I havent seen HSUS denying the accusation.
You're right, it doesn't have anything to do with shelter animals.
I just can't wrap my head around the fact that a self proclaimed animal lover would be so resentful of an organization which really does make successful efforts to combat factory farming, one of the most deplorable practices in general, if not the most deplorable as far as animal well being is concerned.
While not a fan of everything that HSUS does, I say good for them for fighting factory farming. It's a unnecessary and extremely cruel practice and something that any group claiming to be concerned about animal welfare should be fighting. And from a scientific standpoint, factory farming contributes massively to environmental degradation and the evolution of dangerous pathogens. HSUS also do not take a "no animal research" position as you claim and do not support the "immediate abolition" stance of extremist groups like PETA. Their approach is one supporting more humane treatment and development of scientifically sound alternatives which hopefully result in a reduction in the number of animals being subjected to research. I think that animal welfare advocates and research scientists have a lot more (not completely, but close enough) common ground than the extremes represent. They need not be automatically diametrically opposed.