Rights Folks Send Mixed Me$$Ages

Animal rights groups are the Jim and Tammy Bakker Show of goodwill toward critters.

The message might sound sincere, but you can’t trust the messenger.

Animal rights groups have learned they can cash in on the soft hearts of unquestioning animal lovers any time they can capture their attention.

Consider Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue, the animal rights group that struck a gold mine of publicity with the bust of a so-called puppy mill near Newport.

The group’s officials recently refused to tell Pend Oreille County deputies how much they had collected from generous donors.

The Sheriff’s Department turned its investigation to bank officials to learned that more than $104,000 had been collected to take care of the dogs. Yet the animal-rights group was refusing to pay bills that were coming in to Pend Oreille County.

The public and press are just beginning to question the tactics in this case. Reason tells us that warnings, fines and sanctions would have been prudent steps in stopping the alleged abuses at Mountain Top Kennel.

But animal rights groups like a big bust that attracts media attention - and fills their coffers with green.

Meanwhile, taxpayers in Pend Oreille County are looking at major expenses and untold legal costs.

Although this incident involves domestic animals, the scam is similar to those animal rights groups are inflicting with increasing effectiveness on wildlife management.

Consider the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

The group finally is being exposed, thanks to the Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report, which have diverged from the press’s usually sympathetic treatment of animal-rights groups.

HSUS, based in Washington, D.C., is the nation’s largest animal advocacy organization. In 1995, it raised nearly $40 million from two million donors. That’s enough money to run an animal shelter in every state and have plenty left over to spay, neuter, feed and save thousands of cats and dogs every year.

However, HSUS does not run a single animal shelter. That dirty work is done by local animal goodwill groups with a similar name.

Please, be clear about this. If you want to donate to local animal shelters, do so. They need all the help they can get in a society that discards pets like pop cans.

The HSUS has different ideas for its money.

Last year, the group bankrolled anti-hunting initiative campaigns for ballots in six states. Here in Washington, animal rights groups were able to dupe environmental groups into believing hound-hunting for cougars was a conservation issue.

It wasn’t, of course. Despite controlled hunting, cougar numbers have steadily increased in the past 20 years.

The conservation issue didn’t arise until the initiative passed.

Now wildlife biologists must figure how to save endangered mountain caribou without the single effective tool they had to control the cougar, the caribou’s nemesis.

An expensive last-ditch reintroduction program in the Selkirk Mountains could very well go the way of most extinctions and extirpations - with a whimper.

The other tragedy is that neither the public nor the mainstream press questioned the motives of HSUS.

How did this non-conservation issue get trumped up to a major regional ballot initiative?

Think about it: In 1995, was there a lot of talk and debate about hound-hunting for cougars? Was this a pressing issue discussed at espresso stands and talk-radio shows along with hot topics such as term limits?

No.

Leaders of animal rights groups must create such crises to earn their gross paychecks and grease the wheels of their propaganda machines.

The mainstream press is quick to jump on the financial dealings of the National Rifle Association because of the group’s political clout. But rarely does the press apply similar scrutiny to politically active animal rights groups.

HSUS is under investigation for illegal financial activity, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the chief executive, John Hoyt, earns $237,871 a year plus perks amounting to tens of thousands more. The group’s president, Paul Irwin, earns $209,051.

Irwin finds much comfort in bashing hunters from one of his five houses - including a modest $786,500 abode in Maryland.

True to form, this anti-hunter doesn’t own a four-wheel-drive. He prefers his Mercedes, Lincoln Town Car and Corvette.

This is why you don’t see animal rights groups working with wildlife biologists to solve management problems.

This is why animal rights groups will never acknowledge the prudence of sacrificing a few bison, mountain goats or maybe even wild horses in order to maintain healthy ecosystems for all wildlife.

There’s no money in it.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review