American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

The ASPCA was founded in the late 1800s with a noble cause. However, in recent years their culture and agenda have radically changed. They are not what they have led people to believe:

• They are only affiliated with one animal shelter in New York City.
• Less than 4% of the money donated to the ASPCA actually supports animal shelters.
• The ASPCA has repeatedly pushed and supported animal extremist legislation
• The ASPCA has thrown up roadblocks to “No-Kill” shelter practices.
• Fundraising is the priority for the ASPCA; they spend tens of millions of donor dollars on advertising and marketing.
• The ASPCA supports numerous animal extremist initiatives.

The ASPCA Is an Animal Extremist Organization

The ASPCA has numerous staff members previously affiliated with radical animal extremist organizations. As an example, the ASPCA campaign, “The Truth About Chicken,” was managed by Suzanne McMillan, a former employee of the radical animal extremist group, Compassion Over Killing (COK). Incidentally, COK was founded by the HSUS’s past Vice President, Paul Shapiro who was ousted for sexual harassment claims.

In the 1990s the ASPCA published a book titled, “The Animal Rights Handbook” and since then, their animal extremist stance has only become more entrenched. The ASPCA has also repeatedly attacked New York Carriage Horses and has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the unethical animal extremist group NYCLASS. NYCLASS is affiliated with NYC real estate developers who are vying for the property that stables carriage horses. They were a party of the Ringling Brothers RICO lawsuit filed against a group of animal extremist organizations and spent $9,500,000 of their donor funds to settle.

Legislative Activities – Pushing Animal Extremist Ideology

The ASPCA has been a consistent supporter of animal-extremist legislation against animal agriculture and animal ownership. As an example, in 2017, they joined in with other radical animal extremist groups to push Prop 12 in California. Collectively, the group spent almost $13,000,000 to pay for signatures and bombard metropolitan markets with anti-animal agriculture advertising. They haven’t just stopped at going after carriage horses and animal agriculture; the ASPCA has also adopted a PETA like (“better off dead”) approach to animal sheltering. They have repeatedly introduced and supported legislation in various areas of the country opposing no-kill shelters. In New York, the ASPCA introduced legislation to allow state animal control facilities to euthanize animals within minutes of arriving without any holding period if the shelter staff believes that an animal is “psychologically suffering.” This is highly problematic because the animal extremist ideology views ownership of animals and human-animal interaction as slavery and abuse.

Funding

Like its sister animal extremist organizations, the ASPCA has amassed a large war chest of funds. According to its income statement found on Charity Navigator, their total revenue for 2018 was $248,084,106.
CharityWatch found that 35% of the ASPCA’s budget is spent on overhead and a large percentage of the money it collects from donations, goes to fundraising efforts. In 2012, the ASPCA spent $52,000,000 on fundraising.

Taking Resources Away from Community Animal Shelters

Despite national fundraising tactics, the ASPCA is not affiliated with local animal shelters. This is problematic for many community shelters and humane organizations because their fundraising activities fool the public into believing their donation dollars are going to provide care for animals in their area. In fact, the State Humane Association of California filed a complaint with the California Attorney General about ASPCA fundraising tactics due to their deceptive practices harming local shelters. To note, this is also the case with the HSUS.

For more information about the complaint against the ASPCA: https://www.humanewatch.org/california_spcas_snarl_at_name_confusion