Confusion or fraud

It is certainly no secret that the Humane Society of the United States along with other advocacy groups have targeted animal agriculture in a big way. Not in a good way. There was a recent full-page ad taken out by a group called HumaneWatch making allegations of very fraudulent behavior on the part of HSUS. I called Hannah Thompson from the Animal Agriculture Alliance. "Very little of their funds, less than 1%, goes to actually helping animals. That can be a big source of frustration to local humane societies because those groups who do run animal shelters are having to compete with this national juggernaut for donations because HSUS is there sending out mailings, advertising on television, trying to get support and a lot of times people in local communities think that they do support the Humane Society but unfortunately, their money is being donated to this national organization that does not operate pet shelters, is not affiliated with local humane societies and they really thrive off of that confusion. They want to use the donations to fund their campaigns that are frequently about animal agriculture and are targeting farmers and ranchers and pushing for certain policies to be put in place. That is going to drive up the cost of food and will force farmers to make tough decisions regarding whether or not they can remain in business. And consumers make decisions about food costs as they go up. I think I actually read that there are some local shelters are looking at changing the name so that they don't have the word humane society in it because of that confusion."