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HSUS’ Pacelle returning to Nebraska

The controversial head of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle, will be in Lincoln Thursday for a forum on humane and sustainable farming.

Whenever Pacelle visits the state, it stirs up talk of a possible HSUS ballot initiative—but Pacelle says that’s not the purpose of his visit.

“We’ve been very, very clear that the issues that we’ve been concerned about are the extreme confinement of veal calves, of breeding sows, and of laying hens,” Pacelle says. “We’ve got plans in the works on all of those issues, and none of them require a ballot measure in Nebraska.

“I’ve never suggested that we’re going to do a ballot measure—and I won’t be announcing one this time either.”

Many in the livestock industry are convinced that HSUS’s ultimate goal is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the consumption of meat.  But Pacelle says the only agenda HSUS has is to promote the humane treatment of animals.

“Animals are going to continue to be raised for food in our society—we know that that’s the reality of this world–and we simply insist that those animals are treated humanely on the farm, in transport and at slaughter,” he says.

“If there are folks who don’t like that view—then, you know, sorry that they don’t like it.  This is the exchange of ideas that we have in a civil society.”

Thursday night’s forum at the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln is hosted by the Nebraska Agriculture Council of HSUS, the organization formed in cooperation with Nebraska Farmers Union in 2011.

Brent Martin of Nebraska Radio Network contributed to this story.