The Humane Society of the United States is another great CCIC member organization. According to its website, it was created in 1954 to promote the protection of all animals. It is the largest animal protection organization in the United States — it has ten million members. It aims to celebrate the human-animal bond, and fight animal cruelty and abuse. It advocates for public policies to protect animal welfare, investigates animal cruelty, works to enforce current legislation, educates the public about animal welfare issues, and conducts a program that helps animals in natural disasters. It also has a few laudable campaigns going right now against numerous animal-harming endeavors: factory farming, animal fighting and other forms of animal cruelty, the fur trade, inhumane sport hunting practices, puppy mills, private ownership of exotic animals as pets, greyhound racing, and “particularly unacceptable” animal research/testing practices such as using great apes as test subjects in research. It also has two “signature programs” — Pets for Life and Wild Neighbors — which celebrate the benefits of the bond between people and animals and teach people how to solve human/animal conflicts humanely (wow, that sounds great! I’ll have to check this out more.) HSUS also has thousands of animals it cares for in sanctuaries, wildlife rehabilitation centers, and mobile veterinary clinics. HSUS has a donation page as well, if you’d like to donate money to it.

An interesting thing about the HSUS website is that the CEO has a blog. There’s also a nice t-shirt shop — I especially like the henley with the small against-seal-hunting-logo — I dislike wearing shirts with giant logos on them, I much prefer the more subtle logo. I also like the sweatshirt that says “Club Sandwiches, Not Seals,” (though I’d prefer that were in smaller text). It says: I’m against animal cruelty, but I have a sense of humor. The other shirts are all very nice too, though there aren’t any anti-animal-testing ones. It’s too bad . . .

Categories : against animal testing, cruelty free