Wayne Pacelle

Wayne Pacelle, 2016

Wayne Pacelle (born August 4, 1969) is an American animal rights activist and serves as president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. Previously, he was national director for the Fund for Animals.

Quotes

• Having hunters oversee wildlife is like having Dracula guard the blood bank.
  • Wayne Pacelle in: William G. Tapply, Who Speaks for People? Field & Stream, June 1991, p. 6

• If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.
  • Wayne Pacelle, Impassioned Agitator, Associated Press, December 30, 1991

"Sabotaging Animal Rights for Deer Hunt," 1986

Wayne Pacelle, "Sabotaging Animal Rights for Deer Hunt,” Yale Daily News, no. 48, November 10, 1986

• I don’t love animals or think they are cute.

• We equate speciesism—the belief that one’s species is superior to all others—with racism and sexism.

• Animals have their own rights. We’re animals too.

• Animals are no one’s property, and they have the right not be ‘taken,’ ‘harvested,’ or ‘culled’ or any other euphemism for murder that wildlife managers use. They are no one’s property, just as you and I are no one’s property other than our own.

Interview in "Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt," 1994

Wayne Pacelle in: Ted Kerasote, "Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt, at humanewatch.org, 1994

• Interviewer: [W]ould you let people hunt for food if they did it respectfully?

Wayne Pacelle: Well, it’s a good question,” he says, pondering what he’s about the say. “I think that I would campaign against it. Yes, I think that I would.

• Interviewer: How about pets, Wayne? Would you envision a future with no pets in the world?

Wayne Pacelle: I wouldn’t say that I envision that, no. If I had my personal view perhaps that might take hold. In fact, I don’t want to see another cat or dog born. It’s not something I strive for, though. If people were very responsible, and didn’t do manipulative breeding, and cared for animals in all senses, and accounted for their nutritional needs as well as their social and psychological needs, then I think it could be an appropriate thing. I’m not sure. I think it’s one of those things that we’ll decide later in society. I think we’re still far from it.

• I’ve always had an affinity for wildlife, and the direct assault made on that wildlife by hunters and trappers has always infuriated me … At the same time, I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals. I did not grow up bonded to any particular nonhuman animal. I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals…

• If society says that it doesn’t want the recreational killing of wildlife then we should do away with it, just the way we’ve done away with cockfighting and dogfighting.

• Interviewer: About fishing … do you avoid campaigning against it because there isn’t a ground-swell movement in our culture to eliminate it?

Wayne Pacelle That is correct. We’re out to minimize suffering wherever it can be done, and wherever our limited resources can be utilized most effectively—abusive forms of hunting for now, all hunting eventually.

"Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry," 2008

Wayne Pacelle in: Carla Hall, "Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry," Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2008.

• Animals for the most part just need to be left alone.

• The whole ‘rights’ thing is fraught with so much. I’m not sure I believe in any natural right.

• There are lots of gun rights groups, but the one that you hear about and the one that is feared is the NRA. I'd rather be loved -- and feared.