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Humane Society of the United States

Founded	November 22, 1954; 69 years ago (1954-11-22) (as National Humane Society)
Founders	Fred Myers Helen Jones Larry Andrews Marcia Glaser Oliver M. Evans
Legal status	501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
Focus	Animal protection, animal rights, cruelty to animals, humane education, animal ethics, animal law, wildlife conservation
Location	1255 23rd Street NW, Suite 450 Washington, D.C., United States
Method	Public education, science-based analysis, training and education, litigation, public policy, direct care
President and chief executive officer	Kitty Block
Board co-chair	Susan Atherton
Board co-chair	Thomas J. Sabatino Jr.
Revenue (2014)	US$135,499,050
Expenses (2014)	$128,921,223
Endowment	$28,155,902
Employees (2014)	528
Volunteers (2014)	1,520

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. It works on issues including pets, wildlife, farm animals, horses and other equines, and animals used in research, testing and education. As of 2001, the group's major campaigns targeted factory farming, animal blood sports, the fur trade, puppy mills, and wildlife abuse.

The HSUS is based in Washington, D.C., and was founded in 1954 by journalist Fred Myers and Helen Jones, Larry Andrews, Marcia Glaser and Oliver M Evans. In 2013, the Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked HSUS as the 136th largest charity in the US in its Philanthropy 400 listing. Its reported revenue was US$129 million and net assets US$215 million as of 2014.

HSUS pursues its global work through an affiliate, Humane Society International, which listed staff 17 nations for 2013. Other affiliated entities include the Doris Day Animal League, and the Fund for Animals. Together with the Fund for Animals, HSUS operates animal sanctuaries in five US states.

HSUS does not run local shelters or oversee local animal care and control agencies, even if “humane society” is part of their name.

Overview

HSUS formed after a schism surfaced in the American Humane Association over pound seizure, rodeo, and other policy issues. The incorporators of HSUS included four people—Larry Andrews, Marcia Glaser, Helen Jones, and Fred Myers—all of whom were active in the leadership of existing local and national groups, who would become its first four employees. One of the original founders, for whom the HSUS headquarters in Washington, D.C., was named in 1975 was Oliver Marshall Evans (1906–1975). (Source The Humane Society News of the United States Winter edition 1975–1976) He served as a director or officer for the 21 years leading up to his death in 1975. He was also President of the HSUS from 1963 to 1967. They believed that a new kind of organization would strengthen the American humane movement, and they set up HSUS as the "National Humane Society", in Washington, D.C., to ensure that it could play a strong role in national policy development concerning animal welfare. HSUS's guiding principle was ratified by its national membership in 1956: "The Humane Society of the United States opposes and seeks to prevent all use or exploitation of animals that causes pain, suffering, or fear."

Rationale

The values that shaped HSUS's formation in 1954, came in some degree from the humane movement that originated in the 1860s in the United States. The idea of kindness to animals made significant inroads in American culture in the years following the Civil War. The development of sympathy for creatures in pain, the satisfaction of keeping them as pets, and the heightening awareness about the relationship between cruelty to animals and interpersonal violence strengthened the movement's popular appeal.

Albert Schweitzer

The most immediate philosophical influence on 1950s-era advocates, including those associated with HSUS, was the reverence-for-life concept advanced by Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer included a deep regard for nonhuman animals in his canon of beliefs, and animal advocates laboring to give their concerns a higher profile were buoyed by Schweitzer's 1952 Nobel Peace Prize speech, in which he noted that "compassion, in which ethics takes root, does not assume its true proportions until it embraces not only man but every living being."

Myers and his colleagues found another exemplar of their values in Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970), whose writings reflected a deep level of appreciation for wilderness and for nonhuman life. With The Great Chain of Life (1957), Krutch established himself as a philosopher of humaneness, and in 1970, HSUS' highest award was renamed in his honor.

The growing environmental movement of the early 1970s also influenced the ethical and practical evolution of HSUS. The burgeoning crisis of pollution and wildlife-habitat loss made the public increasingly aware that humans needed to change their behavior toward other living things. By that time, too, the treatment of animals had become a topic of serious discussion within moral philosophy.

The debate spilled over into public consciousness with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation (1975). Singer's book sought to recast concern for animals as a justice-based cause like the movements for civil rights and women's rights.

Most of what Singer wrote concerning the prevention or reduction of animals' suffering was in harmony with HSUS's objectives. Singer's philosophy did not rest upon the rights of animals, and he specifically rejected the framework of rights in favor of a utilitarian assessment that focused on animal sentience. His principal concern, like that of HSUS, was the mitigation and elimination of suffering, and he endorsed the view that ethical treatment sometimes permitted or even required killing animals to end their misery.

The 1980s witnessed a flourishing of concern about animals and a proliferation of new organizations, many influenced by the emergence of a philosophy holding that animals had inherent rights. Those committed to the purest form of animal rights rejected any human use of animals. In this changing context, HSUS faced new challenges. As newer animal organizations adopted more radical approaches to achieve their goals, the organization born in anti-establishment politics now found itself identified—and sometimes criticized—as the "establishment" group of record.

History

In 1954, HSUS's founders decided to create a new kind of animal organization, based in the nation's capital, to confront national cruelties beyond the reach of local societies and state federations. Humane slaughter became an immediate priority and commanded a substantial portion of the organization's resources. Myers and his colleagues also viewed this first campaign as a vehicle for promoting movement cohesion.

Humane slaughter legislation

In 1958, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act passed, which required the proper use of humane slaughter methods at slaughterhouses subject to federal inspection. Only four years after HSUS's formation, Myers pointed out that the movement had united, for the first time in eighty-five years, to achieve enactment of federal legislation that would affect the lives of tens of millions of animals. He was encouraged that "hundreds of local societies could lift their eyes from local problems to a great national cruelty."

Ban of experimentation upon animals

HSUS also made the use of animals in research, testing, and education an early focus. In the post–World War II era, an increasingly assertive biomedical research community sought to obtain animals from pounds and shelters handling municipal animal control contracts. Local humane societies across the nation resisted. HSUS sought to bolster the movement's strong opposition to pound seizure, believing that no public pound or privately operated humane society should be compelled by law to provide animals for experimental use.

HSUS took the position that animal experimentation should be banned, and in the 1950s it placed investigators in laboratories to gather evidence of substandard conditions and animal suffering and neglect. The HSUS was not an anti-vivisection society, Myers explained in 1958. Rather, it stood for the principle that "every humane society ... should be actively concerned about the treatment accorded to such a vast number of animals."

Companion animals and shelters

Service to local animal shelters, with a special focus on solving problems and challenges of importance to every one of the nation's humane societies, was an early priority for HSUS. Its first brochure, "They Preach Cruelty", focused on the tragedy of animal overpopulation. HSUS and its state branches operated animal shelters in Waterford, Virginia, Salt Lake City Utah, and Boulder, Colorado, and elsewhere, during the 1960s, and part of the 1970s. From the early 1960s onward, HSUS worked to promote the most humane methods possible for pitting down of animals in shelters, using its Waterford, Virginia animal shelter as a model for best practices in this area. HSUS does not currently operate any Animal Shelters.

In 1984, a General Accounting Office report confirmed HSUS allegations of major problems with puppy mills in the United States, setting the stage for proposed legislation to regulate mills in the 1990s.

Exposure of cruelty in the dog trade

In 1961, HSUS investigator Frank McMahon launched a probe of dog dealers around the country to generate support for a federal law to prevent cruelty to animals destined for use in laboratories. The five-year investigation into the multilayered trade in dogs paid off in February 1966 when Life published a photo-essay of a raid conducted on a Maryland dog dealer's premises by McMahon and the state police. The Life spread sparked outrage, and tens of thousands of Americans wrote to their congressional representatives, demanding action to protect animals and prevent pet theft. That summer the U.S. Congress approved the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act (later renamed the "Animal Welfare Act of 1966"), only the second major federal humane law passed since World War II.

Goals and expansion

Other broad goals during this time included a reduction in the U.S.'s homeless dog and cat population, the reform to regulate pet shops and to end the commercial pet breeding trade. HSUS and its state branches operated animal shelters in Waterford, Virginia, Salt Lake City Utah, and Boulder, Colorado, and elsewhere, during the 1960s, and part of the 1970s. Today, HSUS operates five animal sanctuaries in the states of California, Florida Massachusetts, Oregon, and Texas.

HSUS also worked, from the 1960s, to promote humane education of children in the schools. Much of this work was carried out under the auspices of an affiliate, the National Association for the Advancement of Humane Education. In the 1980s, HSUS sponsored several validation studies designed to demonstrate the value of humane education.

Relationship to animal rights

While HSUS welcomed and benefited from growing social interest in animals, it did not originally embrace the language and philosophy of animal rights. Rather, HSUS representatives expressed their beliefs that animals were "entitled to humane treatment and to equal and fair consideration." Like many of the organizations and individuals associated with humane work, HSUS did try to come to terms with the shift toward rights-based language and arguments. In 1978, attorneys Robert Welborn and Murdaugh Stuart Madden conducted a workshop at the HSUS annual conference, "Can Animal Rights Be Legally Defined?", and assembled constituents passed a resolution to the effect that "animals have the right to live and grow under conditions that are comfortable and reasonably natural... animals that are used by man in any way have the right to be free from abuse, pain, and torment caused or permitted by man... animals that are domesticated or whose natural environment is altered by man have the right to receive from man adequate food, shelter, and care." In 1980 the notion of rights surfaced in an HSUS convention resolution which, noting that "such rights naturally evolve from long accepted doctrines of justice or fairness or some other dimension of morality", called for "pursuit on all fronts... the clear articulation and establishment of the rights of animals"

In 1986, HSUS employee John McArdle declared that "HSUS is definitely shifting in the direction of animal rights faster than anyone would realize from our literature". The HSUS fired McArdle shortly thereafter, he alleged, for being an "animal rights activist". At about the same time, former HSUS president John Hoyt stated that "this new [animal rights] philosophy has served as a catalyst in the shaping of our own philosophies, policies, and goals."

Positions and program work

Animal fighting

In July 2007, HSUS led calls for the National Football League to suspend Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick in the wake of allegations that he had been involved with dog fighting activity. Vick was prosecuted and convicted under state and federal laws. HSUS has backed upgrades of the federal laws concerning animal fighting in 2007, 2008, and in relation to the Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act, from 2011 to the present.

Animals in research, testing, and education

Beginning in the 1990s, HSUS board member David O. Wiebers, a medical doctor associated with the Mayo Clinic, undertook efforts to lessen tensions between animal protection organizations and the scientific community, and to seek to identify areas of common agreement. The announcement by the NIH that it would no longer fund experiments that relied on Class B dealers marked the end of a long campaign by HSUS and other organizations to halt this channel for the supply of animals

In 2013, HSUS worked closely with the Arcus Foundation and other partners in the successful effort to persuade the U.S. government to transfer the remaining chimpanzees it owns to sanctuary over time, and for an end to chimpanzee use in research, testing, and education. Since 2007, HSUS has pressed corporations still using chimpanzees in research to commit to policies of non-use. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine, part of the United States National Academies, recommended the curtailment of chimp use in testing. The IOM said that while genetic similarity made chimps valuable for medical research, such research raised ethical issues and carried a "moral cost". In 2014, Merck, the world's third largest pharmaceutical company, became the largest multinational corporation to make such a commitment.

Animals used for food

Basic policy

HSUS opposes cruelty in the raising and slaughter of animals used for food, and has done so since its inception in 1954. HSUS's policy of the 3 Rs encourages its constituents to reduce their consumption of meat.

Campaigns

HSUS led the ballot initiative campaign to enact California Proposition 2 (2008), enacted as the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, requiring cage-free conditions for laying hens, mother pigs and veal calves raised in the state. An HSUS-led coalition also pressed for the passage of a California foie gras ban that took effect in mid-2012. In 2016, HSUS led the campaign to enact the Massachusetts Conditions for Farm Animals Initiative, which banned the use of small cages to raise animals in agriculture; it received 77.7% of public support .

In 2018, the HSUS-led California Proposition 12 (2018), which built on the 2008 law, mandated that eggs, pork and veal produced and sold in the state come from cage-free facilities. Since then, HSUS has spearheaded successful efforts to pass cage-free legislation in Washington, Oregon, Michigan and Colorado.

HSUS has convinced hundreds of the largest grocery and restaurant companies to enact reforms regarding their treatment of farm animals. The organization also collaborates with food service companies and institutions to offer more plant-based meals, stating that in 2019 it trained more than 10,000 food service professionals.

Companion animals

The HSUS has an entire department devoted to pets, and to services for companion animals. It also has sections working to end dog-fighting, and to provide rescue and emergency services to animals at risk in animal fighting, hoarding, puppy mill enterprises and disasters. The HSUS Pets for Life program uses community-level outreach in a number of American cities, including Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, to raise retention levels and to improve the lives of companion animals and those who care for them, by providing veterinary services in zones where convenient and low-cost care is lacking. The HSUS is a strong supporter of "pets in the workplace" programs.

HSUS publishes Animal Sheltering, a bi-monthly magazine for animal sheltering professionals. It also operates the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, which provides free veterinary services for animals in impoverished communities.

In 2013, the HSUS gave its Henry Spira Corporate Progress Award to the Consumer Specialty Products Association to recognize the antifreeze manufacturing industry's commitment to add a bittering agent to products so that animals would not die poisonous deaths, the subject of a long-running campaign by the HSUS.

HSUS believes that, in general, wild animals are not suitable as pets, and opposes the general traffic in wild animals.

Puppy mills

HSUS has been an active opponent of the domestic and global puppy mill industry, and helped law enforcement agencies to confiscate more than 35,000 animals from purported puppy mills since 2007. HSUS has also pressed anti-puppy mill bills in states like Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The number of dog breeders licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture declined from 3,486 in 2009 to 2,205 in 2011.

HSUS led the effort to secure adoption of a United States Department of Agriculture rule to prohibit the importation into the United States of dogs from foreign countries for resale unless the animals were in good health, vaccinated and at least 6 months old.

Dog breeders opposed another measure supported by HSUS, to regulate the sale of dogs over the Internet.

Wildlife

HSUS opposes the hunting of any living creature for fun, trophy, or sport. HSUS only supports killing animals for population control when carried out by officials and does not oppose hunting for food or subsistence needs. As a practical matter, HSUS has generally campaigned against abuses found in the treatment of wildlife. Its ballot initiatives focus on things like shooting bear over bait, hunting with hounds, and other forms of hunting the organization believes are unsporting.

Together with its global affiliate, Humane Society International, HSUS has waged a decade-long fight to end the Canadian seal hunt. In late 2013, the World Trade Organization upheld the European Union ban on trade in products of commercial seal hunts, rejecting the Canadian and Norwegian challenge.

HSUS has waged campaigns on behalf of wolves since the 1970s. In recent years, HSUS has campaigned against the killing of wolves via ballot initiatives, and—with other partners—in litigation.

In June 2007, HSUS launched Humane Wildlife Services, a program to encourage and provide humane wildlife-removal services when wild animals intrude on human dwellings.

Through its efforts in the United States, and globally through its affiliate Humane Society International, HSUS has helped to achieve prohibitions on shark finning in state and national legislatures and through administrative action here and abroad.

The HSUS offers many resources to individuals, organizations and public officials, for helping feral cats and ultimately reducing their numbers in the community. The Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy convened a conference on outdoor cat issues in December 2012, bringing together stakeholders from a range of interested perspectives.

Zoos

HSUS first took a policy position on zoos in 1975, its board of directors concluding that it would be neither for nor against zoos, but would work against roadside menageries and regular zoos that could not improve. In 1984, HSUS adopted a policy that animals should not be taken from the wild for public display in zoos.

Other issues

HSUS opposes greyhound racing, animal fighting, and works to limit the use and abuse of animals in certain display and spectacular contexts like zoos, circuses, aquariums, and roadside zoos.

HSUS has taken a careful but critical stance concerning practices commonly found in the horse racing industry. On occasion, HSUS has taken a position against particular practices associated with horse racing, such as the use of corticosteroids.

HSUS has long opposed the keeping of marine mammals in captivity and played a key longterm role in the campaign to end captive orca performance at SeaWorld. HSUS opposed the Georgia Aquarium's application to the National Marine Fisheries Service to import 18 beluga whales from Russia, an application the NMFS denied.

HSUS has long opposed the use of horses for food, and campaigned against their slaughter via litigation and public policy approaches. It has pursued both legislative and litigation channels as part of its campaign to prevent horse slaughter plants in the United States from resuming their operations.

HSUS, in addition to its ongoing lobbying against the pet industry, has taken a strong stance against the private ownership of any exotic pet, regardless of species. The HSUS also heavily lobbied for the passing of HB 4393 in West Virginia, which generated a large amount of controversy when its restricted animal list was originally drafted and made illegal the private ownership of common and harmless exotic pets, such as hamsters, hedgehogs, turtles, tortoises, pufferfish, sugar gliders, salamanders, alpacas and domestic hybrid cat breeds.

Governance and expenses

The Humane Society of the United States headquarters located in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

A nonprofit, charitable organization, HSUS is funded almost entirely by private membership dues, contributions, foundation grants, and bequests. HSUS is governed by a 27-member, independent board of directors. Each director serves as a volunteer and receives no compensation for service.

HSUS meets all 21 BBB Wise Giving Alliance financial and administrative standards, and all 20 of the BBB's Standards for Charity Accountability. In 2010, Worth magazine named the HSUS as one of the 10 Most Fiscally Responsible Charities. In 2012, President and CEO Wayne Pacelle received $347,675 in compensation.

In 2014, Charity Navigator issued a "Donor Advisory" about HSUS, temporarily removing its rating of the organization.

Grantmaking

HSUS gave grants to 260 other organizations in the U.S. and abroad during 2011, totaling $6.5 million.

According to its IRS Form 990, HSUS makes grants to organizations that meet its mission criteria, and typically to those groups which it has researched, with which it has an existing relationship, or with which its staff members have interacted at events and through other channels. HSUS lists all grants of $500 or more, with details, although the IRS Schedule F requires only that grants surpassing $5,000 need be reported.

Affiliated and related entities

Humane Society International

Founded in 1991, Humane Society International (HSI) seeks to expand the HSUS's activities into Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. HSI's Asian, Australian, Canadian, and European offices carry out field activities and programs.

Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association

The Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association (HSVMA) was formed in 2008 to encompass both veterinary advocacy and veterinary clinical services work conducted by the HSUS, and to provide a political alternative to the American Veterinary Medical Association for veterinarians of a strong animal welfare orientation.

Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust

As an affiliate of the Humane Society of the United States since 1993 HSWLT, alone or in partnership with other conservation groups, has participated in the protection and enhancement of more than 3.6 million acres of wildlife habitat in 38 states and nine foreign countries. HSWLT has taken both large and small properties under its protection, through title donations, conservation easements, and formal agreements, to provide sanctuaries for a variety of animal species. In recent years, HSWLT has also sponsored anti-poaching awards as part of its commitment to public awareness and law enforcement work.

Doris Day Animal League

The Doris Day Animal League, established in 1987 by the actress Doris Day, is a 501(c)(4) organization that focuses the spaying and neutering of companion animals and the development of national, state and local legislation that will minimize the inhumane treatment of animals. The League launched its annual observance of Spay Day USA in 1994, to bring attention to the pet overpopulation problem in the United States.

The Fund for Animals

The Fund for Animals, founded by the social critic Cleveland Amory in 1967, worked for many years on wildlife issues. Today, it is an entity that manages animal care facilities as an affiliate of HSUS. Its sanctuaries include the Ramona Wildlife Facility, the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch, the Duchess Horse Sanctuary, and the Cape Wildlife Center.

Humane Society Legislative Fund

The Humane Society Legislative Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization formed in 2004. The group supports the passage of animal protection laws at the state and federal levels, educates the public about animal protection issues, and supports humane candidates for office. In the 2014 cycle, the Humane Society Legislative Fund has endorsed 38 Republicans and 240 Democrats in races across the country

Headquarters and regional offices

The Humane Society's national headquarters are in Washington, D.C. It employed 528 employees during 2014. Its international arm, Humane Society International (HSI), has offices in half a dozen nations and a broad range of international animal protection programs. One of the largest veterinary clinics in the Midwest is the Humane Society location in St. Louis, the growth and success of the clinic has been accredited to their Chief of Staff for 55 years, Suzanne Saueressig. The clinic admits around 80,000 patients a year and averages around 17,000 surgeries.

Animal Charity Evaluators review

Animal charity evaluator Animal Charity Evaluators recommended the Humane Society of the United States' Farm Animal Protection Campaign as a Standout Charity between May 2014 and February 2018. ACE designates as Standout Charities those organizations which they do not feel are as strong as their Top Charities, but which excel in at least one way and are exceptionally strong compared to animal charities in general.

In their November 2016 review of the HSUS Farm Animal Protection Campaign, ACE cited their strengths as their large reach, strategic approach, and long track record of legal work, corporate outreach, and meat reduction programs. ACE stated that their primary concern with the Farm Animal Protection Campaign was that it was unclear the extent to which their budget comes from the HSUS general budget, and whether small donations to the Farm Animal Protection Campaign would be fungible with other HSUS activities.

In February 2018, ACE rescinded their recommendation of the HSUS Farm Animal Protection Campaign following allegations of misconduct from both the former president of HSUS and the former vice president of the Farm Animal Protection Campaign. This rescission was made because ACE believes strong, ethical leadership and a healthy work environment are critical components of an effective charity.