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Anti-meat agenda?

There is a YouTube video that has been circulating on Facebook and other social networking sites in recent days featuring comments from Miyun Park, Vice President for Farm Animal Welfare at Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) from 2004 – 2009. The comments were made, according to the producer of the video, during a 2006 panel organized by the Animals and Society Institute.

Presently, Park is Executive Director of Washington, D.C.’s Global Animal Partnership and serves on the Editorial Board of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Gateway to Farm Animal Welfare portal. She has written and published dozens of articles and reports on animal agriculture and the welfare of farm animals and is co-editor of the book Gristle: From Factory Farms to Food Safety (Thinking Twice About the Meat We Eat).

Because I have never heard Miyun Park speak, I can only assume that the voice I hear on this video is indeed her voice. This is what she says:

“For all of us, our goal is to reduce the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest number of animals.

We don’t want any of these animals to be raised and killed. But when we’re talking about numbers like 1 million slaughtered in the U.S. in a single hour or 48 billion killed every year around the world, unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of waiting until we have the opportunity to get rid of the entire industry.

And so because of that, a number of organizations, including the Humane Society of the United States, we work on promoting veganism, and encouraging people to make daily choices that will positively impact the welfare of animals and at the same time to reduce the greatest amount of suffering for these animals.

We have a very active cage-free campaign. Are we saying that cage-free eggs are the way to go? No, that’s not what we’re saying. But we are saying it is a step in the right direction. . . “

I find it interesting that time and again, we hear comments such as those attributed to Park in the YouTube video coming from others who have worked or currently work with Wayne Pacelle at HSUS. However, time and again, we hear Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of HSUS proclaim that he is not driven by an ‘anti-meat’ agenda.

In a recent interview with Brownfield’s Ken Anderson, Pacelle vehemently denied that vegan and anti-meat activists in the organization’s leadership ranks are out to eliminate animal agriculture, as many in agriculture firmly believe. Pacelle said there is no evidence that HSUS is opposed to the consumption of meat—and he blames the agricultural media for fostering “paranoia” about HSUS within the ag community.

Shame on me and my peers in the ag media if you are concerned – or as Pacelle says, “paranoid”- about the true mission of HSUS.

Shame on you if you are not concerned.

  • Sure they’re not anti-meat and not out to gut animal agriculture.

    And I can get you a REALLY great deal on a bridge in very fine condition …

    What people have to do is learn to look at what they do, instead of listening to what they say. If you doubt, just look at what they’ve done to egg production in CA, and are working hard to spread to WA. What they say is that bigger cages for battery hens isn’t ‘humane’ enough, you have to go ‘cage free’. And for those of you who don’t know much about hens, I’m here to tell you that establishing ‘cage free’ egg production will not meet their ‘standards’, because ‘cage free’ does NOT mean ‘free range’, and the attrition rates will have them back at the polls screaming for more changes in short order.

    Not that ‘free range’ would meet their standards either, in the long term. The reality is that there is no husbandry of any animal which will meet their ‘humane’ standards, because to them, animal ownership/use = animal abuse, and continuing to appease them will, in fact, result in an end to animal agriculture.

    Guv Dave in Nebraska has the right idea – Go Dave!

  • oh god! You should be scared… only 99% of the population eats meat. And your exports are way up. whhhaaaaah mama

  • ARHGGGGH Only 99% of the population eats meat 3 times a day! We’re about to run out of town! WHAAAAHH mama

  • “Pacelle said there is no evidence that HSUS is opposed to the consumption of meat”

    What a tool. One look at their website confirms it. Not a single recipe containing an animal product, yet tons of articles about going “meat-free” or eating “cruelty-free.”

    Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see the HSUS is anti-meat, anti-hunting and anti-animal ownership.

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