Mike Adams – We have had a lot questions about where you come down on animal rights and welfare. The livestock industry and people I know believe in the humane treatment of animals. There is a difference between animal welfare and animal rights. How do you define the two? Are they same or different?
Wayne Pacelle – We at the Humane Society of the United States don’t talk about animal rights, but human responsibility. That places us more with the comments that you represent from the agriculture community. In almost all of our campaigns and activities, whether it’s Prop 2 in California or prior ballot measures in Florida or Arizona, or in our Hallmark/Westland investigation, where we exposed the terrible mistreatment at a cull cow slaughter plant of the spent dairy cows, or in some other campaigns, those fit squarely in the realm of animal welfare. They relate not whether animals should be used for food, but how they are treated during production, transport and slaughter.
I get distressed when I read so much of the ag trade press and when I heard spokespersons from the Farm Bureau caricature the positions of me or the HSUS. It’s easy to knock down a straw man if you make that straw man look like a nut. If you look at the actual things we do, and I do insist that people look at them, and we’re transparent, you can go to www.HSUS.org and my blog where I write 5 days a week and see what we campaign and talk about. We are focused on matters of decency and mercy toward animals. We’ll have some disagreements depending on what your orientation is, but I don’t think anyone can reasonably claim that our work is moving in the direction of eliminating animal agriculture as some of the folks in the industry keep repeating.
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