General Animal Protection

Readers of this blog may be familiar with recent efforts from The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to confront the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), an industry-backed front group that targets animal advocates and misinforms the public about a wide range of consumer issues. While CCF, its people, and its actions are certainly deplorable, it's worth asking whether or not a public response is the best option for HSUS or any other animal advocacy group being publicly attacked. In this post we provide a point/counterpoint on HSUS's "counterpunch," and we invite readers to weigh in with your own thoughts.

Max Planck, the German physicist and Nobel Prize winner once remarked, "a new (scientific) truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." This may seem like a cynical point of view, but Planck understood that truth is neither self-evident nor easily accepted; it requires time to erode strongly held falsehoods and persuade people to accept new concepts.

Our goal with HumaneSpot.org is to help animal and environmental advocates be more effective by empowering them with informative research. During the two and a half years since we launched HumaneSpot.org, I'm pleased to say our user base has grown significantly and we consistently receive positive feedback. To help advocates get even more from using HumaneSpot.org, here are a few essential tips and resources...

Last week I wrote about research evidence showing that stories are more persuasive than data-intensive appeals when it comes to reaching most audiences. Here's some more evidence provided by the same source (nonprofit marketing guru Andy Goodman) suggesting that people more readily believe an individual's story than data describing the context of that individual's situation. Advocates should recognize the difference and avoid having the same bias themselves.

We hear a lot these days about the power of "telling stories" to persuade people to change their attitudes, to donate, etc. Although I'm a big fan of data and hard numbers, there's good evidence that they do not make compelling outreach material for most audiences. This may be particularly true for animal issues, where the number of animals on farms and in shelters and laboratories is staggeringly high and difficult for many people to comprehend.

Now that 2009 has faded into memory, I'd like to share with you a few of the Humane Research Council's major accomplishments for the year. Thanks almost entirely to your support, we’re proud to have just completed HRC's most productive year in the nearly 10 years of our existence! And, we plan to make 2010 better yet by reaching even more animal advocates to help them maximize their efforts for animals with our strategic research.

As 2009 comes to a close, I thought I'd share some of HumaneSpot.org users' favorite items from the past year. Based on the number of views, here are HumaneSpot.org's most popular blog posts, research citations, and web pages for the year. They include a little bit of everything, from in vitro meat to hunting statistics to research on animal research. If we missed one of your personal favorites, please mention it in the comments section.