March 11th, 2011 by Editor

March 18, 2011 update: HB 1166 has been kicked back down to the Rules Committee.  Let’s hope it stays there.

March 11, 2011 update: You can track HB 1166‘s status here.  HB 1166 is scheduled to be heard in committee March 15:

Animals Subcommittee Hearing
Mar 15 2011, 1:05PM
Stratton Building, Room 413
Springfield, IL

This bill is currently in the Agriculture & Conservation Committee.  Please send your polite letters to the Ag Committee and oppose HB 1166!

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We discussed Illinois HB 1166 in a prior post on hoarding, but this bill is so slimy I think it now merits its own post.  HB 1166 has the pretense of being an anti-hoarding bill, but it’s really an anti-breeder and even an anti-companion animal bill in disguise.  The bill language states that,

“A person must obtain a permit from the Board to possess 7 or more companion animals, as defined in the Humane Care for Animals Act. Failure to receive a permit for the possession of 7 or more companion animals is a violation of this Section and a person is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. A second or subsequent violation is a Class 4 felony with every day that a violation continues constituting a separate offense.”

The Humane Care for Animals Act has a broad definition of companion animals.  Under the act, a,

“‘Companion animal’ means an animal that is commonly considered to be, or is considered by the owner to be, a pet. ‘Companion animal’ includes, but is not limited to, canines, felines, and equines.”

Per this definition, any animal Illinoisans keep as a pet could be considered a companion animal.  So consider the ramifications if HB 1166 passes.  For instance, a hamster is a companion animal is it not?  Have you ever brought a hamster home from the pet store only to find out later that it was pregnant and had anywhere from 5-8 babies?  So, HB 1166, if it passed, would then require you to get a permit because overnight your hamster became a mommy, unbeknownst to you.  And if you don’t get a permit for your little bundles of hamster joy, will a SWAT team bust down your door, confiscate all your animals, and throw you in jail?  Do you see how ludicrous HB 1166 is? Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

When Nathan Winograd’s groundbreaking book Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America came out a few years ago, those of us who were true animal welfarists — not that faction of animal welfare that was leaning dangerously close to animal rightism — finally had a voice.  We rejoiced because we love animals and didn’t want to see them needlessly killed. (And it’s not euthanasia to needlessly kill perfectly adoptable animals in shelters.  Killing in shelters for reasons other than illness and a few other exceptions isn’t mercy killing; it’s just needless killing.)  And I finally understood why some shelters, Animal Controls, animal rights groups, and even some animal welfare groups didn’t want to save perfectly adoptable animals.

As Winograd pointed out in Redemption, the elimination of domestic animal ownership is in keeping with an ideology called “nativism.” Winograd defines nativism as the,

“…belief that the value of an individual animal comes from lineage and that worth as a species stems from being at a particular location first” (79).

In the minds of many environmentalists and animal rights activists, since you can’t set domestic animals free (after all, they are, according to them, unnatural human creations), you must necessarily kill them.  So, in their view, in order to return to the “natural order” of things, indigenous species should take precedent over human encroachment, which includes human domestication of animals, because wild (i.e. natural, indigenous), animals were there first.   Another way to put that is some animal rights and animal welfare organizations, as adherents of nativism, may not have an interest in saving pets’ lives, but may in fact be willfully seeking to exterminate them because pets are domesticated, not wild. Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: Illinois State Representative for the 89th district Jim Sacia has posted a few times about the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) on his blog, but the blog post I’ve excerpted below is the most poignant. It is literally an answer to prayer (at least mine anyway) that elected officials start outing the agenda of the HSUS which has made a sport of slickster lobbying, defrauding the public, and unconstitutional legislation such that any elected official who entertains the HSUS’ legislation should be looked upon with a suspicion of treason. But kudos to Rep. Sacia for telling it like it is about the HSUS. I would simply point Rep. Sacia to the Activist Cash article about the HSUS’ alleged domestic terrorist ties and ask him, since he’s a retired FBI agent, why it is that the FBI does not investigate the HSUS’ domestic terrorist ties, or if they have investigated the HSUS’ domestic terrorist ties, why hasn’t anyone from the HSUS been prosecuted?  As Sacia himself notes in the blog post below, the HSUS is being investigated by the IRS for tax fraud.  Can’t we do better than that?  At what point does government stop entertaining the malfeasance of the HSUS and shut them down???

And while a few years ago I would have echoed Sacia’s sentiments to donate to your local shelter, I know the one I used to volunteer for was overtaken in what looked like a hostile takeover by radical animal rightists, so you have to be careful on the local level as well.  If your local shelter or Animal Control extols the supposed virtues of PETA, the HSUS, or the ASPCA, you might want to be careful.

From the blog of Illinois State Representative Jim Sacia:

…I’ve written of [the HSUS] before and the appeal they have for your money. Over the Christmas Holidays their ads were everywhere. Beaten down dogs, one eyed cats (and of course it was a big sad eye), and a lame, old, starved, and debilitated horse. And you, the concerned citizen, could fix all of this for a mere $19.00 per month sent to them to help care for these beaten, downtrodden animals.

Had you taken the time to do the research, you would have learned that the $19.00 per month translates to $228.00 per year and of that $228.00 total sum, $1.03 would have reached an actual hands-on animal shelter. By comparison, HSUS had 555 employees and paid them $37.8 million in 2008. This includes over $2.5 million contributed to employee pension plans. HSUS’ chief executive, Wayne Pacelle, made just over $251,000 in salary and benefits.

This agency just must receive closer scrutiny. Using Ohio as an example, “HSUS made zero donations to Ohio pet shelters in 2007 and 2008 and gave just $5,200 in 2006. This year, however, the organization is gearing up to spend millions of dollars in Ohio on the anti livestock farming ballot initiative.” (The Center for Consumer Freedom, not your local Humane Society, go to humane watch.org.)  Read the rest of this entry »