BiographyIn 2004 Wayne Pacelle was named president of the world’s richest animal-rights organization, the Humane Society of the United States. Pacelle, a strict vegan, joined HSUS in 1994 after working at the anti-hunting group the Fund for Animals for six years. There he helped Paul Watson and his violent Sea Shepherd Conservation Society raise money for ships. Pacelle’s goal is to create “a National Rifle Association of the animal rights movement.” He is in charge of HSUS’s many ballot initiative campaigns, winning 17 of the 22 in which he has been involved. His biggest win was in Florida, where an initiative passed that gave constitutional rights to pregnant pigs. Florida farmers were banned from using “gestation crates.” Many farmers killed their animals as a result and the pork industry in Florida is almost extinct. He plans campaigns against gestation crates in other states, and is already organizing in California and New Jersey. At the 1996 HSUS annual meeting, Pacelle announced that the ballot initiative would be used for all manner of legislation in the future, including “companion animal issues and laboratory animal issues.” These operations, he says, “pay dividends and serve as a training ground for activists.” Pacelle’s wife, Kirsten Rosenberg, works for Ark Trust, now the HSUS Hollywood office.
Background
President, Humane Society of the United States; former Executive Dir. & National Dir., the Fund For Animals; former president, Animal Rights Alliance; former chairman, Animal Rights Network Inc.; former editor, The Animals’ Agenda magazine
Associated Organizations and Foundations
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