BigGameHoundsmen.com

As sick as it made me to my stomach.. thank you for bringing this video to our attention.

OKay this is what I wrote her and the reply I got.

To: Megan Sewell (megansewell@myspace.com)

I recently was made aware that you and the HSUS made a video against hounds and hunting. I saw the video and I have to say that you it was complete bullox. You used a friend of mine's footage from a professional video he made. That I find is wrong in itself and a form of piracy. Also you cannot generalize and say that all hounds people are cruel and treat their hounds badly. That is not right and you are purposely trying to portray an image to the public without real education to do so correctly. I have a tremendous bond with my hounds and treat them like royalty. I have been an animal lover and owner all my life and know the difference between good and cruel treatment of animals. I would be the first person to report harm being done to any dog and can tell you first hand that houndsmen and women are some of the most responsible and best owners of their dogs. Sure there are some bad apples in every bunch, but to purposly generalize like you do in the video is not right. I know I cannot change your mind in this short email, but maybe it might make you think a little about things and realize that not only are you passing judgement on people you do not know or know their true purpose in what they do, but you are passing on missguided information to the public. I don't know if you will respond to me or just delete this email, but at least think about it.
Thanks,
Tessa

45 Min ago

To: IrishMountainGirl


You really have nothing better to do than harass people?

This is my first letter to miss Megen:
It's a shame you have to illicit donations from unknowing (ignorant)
people thru the use of lies, opinion and deception. Your Hound Hunting
video and fact sheets are so Fact Free as to be hilarious. It's almost
as if you just made it up as you went along! Which is something I'd
expect HSUS to do. You should probably do a little research before you
print something that's available to the general public. This only
exposes your anti-hunt, anti-pet, anti-animal agenda. Thats all PETA
and HSUS will ever be to the informed and educated majority, a for
profit, far left radical, anti-animal group that solicits money to
fund their own activities, and does nothing that actually benefits
wildlife or domestic animals, after all, by your own admission, only
4% of what you take in goes to animal welfare. Meanwhile, Hunters,
Fishermen, Trappers, etc. contribute tens on millions of dollars every
year that goes directly to wildlife conservation. And we contribute
willingly, with out the lies and deception that prey on the sympathy
of those ignorant to the actual facts.
Then I really got her goat with this one:
We the people, the majority of the United States, are calling on all
> HSUS and PETA members and supporters to undergo medical sterilization.
> I hope you understand, since Ignorance breeds, we have to put a stop
> to this immediately, we are hoping for one generation and out.
> thank you......John S Blom
That got her attention, her reply:
Hound hunters do not make up the majority of the United States.

The HSUS has more than 11 million members and constituents, making it a
fairly mainstream organization. You may believe that we are out of step
with the beliefs of the rest of the country, but judging from the amount
of support we receive, the public is very supportive of stronger laws
protecting animals.

So I wrote her a nice one:
Hound hunters do not make up the majority in any state, Hound hunting
is very specialized, it takes a lot of patience to train a successful
hound. My hound is four years old, she's a Bench show champ, and Grand
water champ, she'll never be a Nite hunt champ, but she's a fun
pleasure hunter. Thats four years I've put in to training her. The
equipment is very specialized also, on an average night, a coon hunter
may be carrying a thousand dollars of equipment, dog box, training
collar, tracking collar, receiver, headlamp, etc. Hound hunting is
also very strenuous, it takes a lot of walking around the woods and
swamps at night, if the dogs get out of hearing, you need the tracking
system to find out where they are, if they're over the mountain,
you're going over the mountain to get them back! The new GPS collars
are great, you can see where the dogs are heading, and if they are
treeing or not, if they are heading towards a road, you can head them
off. Sometimes, there's no scent (no raccoons are moving), so if the
dogs aren't barking, you can't know which way they're heading,
tracking collars enable you to find your dogs. Any way this brings me
to economic impact, dog related activities in West Virginia (figures
prepared by a state legislator) generate approx. $191,918,000.00.
Thats 1/4 the total economic impact of all hunting and fishing in the
state, total is approx. $800,000,000.00. Times that by 50, plus or
minus, and you get quite a large amount of money brought in by hunting
and fishing in the U.S. How do you figure to replace that? Your donors
are tricked into supporting your cause, our donors give willingly. You
have to lie and generate false sympathy to attract supporters, our
supporters are born into, and live it for their entire lives. Our
supporters pay for all wildlife management and conservation. Do you
contribute to this at all? How do you think state Fish and Game
departments operate? They are funded 100% by our license dollars! P.A.
fish and game gets nothing from the state, without our contributions
through license sales, there would be no public land or wildlife to
manage. When I read your "fact sheets" or view your website, I get
embarrassed for you and your supporters ignorance and misguided views.
It's really a shame you have to hide behind a noble cause to try and
pass your radical agenda.

Then I really got her flustered with facts and figures, I guess the numbers got too big for her to deal with so she ended with this:
Actually, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, while hunters
contribute $21,976,621,000 to the national economy through their related
expenditures, wildlife watchers contribute $40,561,910,000 to the
economy through their related expenditures, which means that wildlife
watchers contribute nearly twice as much to the economy as hunters.

"State conservation efforts" typically benefit hunters, certainly not
all wildlife, and many of the actions funded benefit the general public
in no way. Pittman-Robertson funding, from excise taxes on all guns,
ammunition (from all gun owners, not just hunters), boating equipment
(the majority of boaters are not hunters) fund state wildlife agencies.

Still, none of these statistics justify the abuse and abandonment of
hunting dogs. The majority of the public opposes this abuse. It is not
the HSUS that is in the minority in thinking that this abuse should not
be tolerated, it is the hunters who justify and deny this abuse.

You were rude from the very beginning and will not receive further
responses.
I was not RUDE, not very anyway.
John S Blom

She just changed her facebook profile picture, it's a picture of an emaciated hound dog. Megan, if you're reading this, I sent you a message on facebook.

I'm not gonna send her a message because I'm not sure if that's the right person. Even if it is, my fight is with HSUS, and the lady speaking on that video is most likely reading a message that somebody else has written. What I may well do is a counter video (like the United Airlines Broke my guitar on Youtube) and use their clips and follow those clips with video and audio that I put together as a rebuttal, cause turnabout is fair play........

ike

Im just amazed to see everyone getting along in here for once. Im gonna have my wife look her up on the face book.

Ike I couldnt agree with you more. Those are things that are less expensive and serve as a counter to tell the truth that alot of people can see. Whatever we do guys we need to make it professional otherwise it can and will be used against us.

Yup, as my lawyer said "they are the big dogs" and may well come after a person with all that money that isn't theirs...........

Surely that wierd little gothic girl doesn't have any pull does she? Sad really she probably got picked on by nerds in school. It's crazy you know guys and girls she said they have eleven million backers in the U.S. there are three hundred and sixty million people so lets just get the rest on our team.

And that is the right approach rh. On most issues there are groups to the right or left pushing an agenda with the largest group of people in the middle. In this case, there are the extreme animal rights groups on one side wanting to gain support from the public against houndsmen by gathering enough people from the middle to impose their will. Basically most people go on about their lives with other things in their brain. We as a hunter group need to put our best foot forward while in public and not give those hunter hates an ammunition....we also need to help educate the public so they have both sides of the story.

ike

Great idea Ike! Make a video, we can't change that lady's opinions, but it doesn't matter, the public is who counts.

Rem 700 , Buddy, Anyone:

Does anyone know what we as an industry Hounds,Hound Hunting ,Feeding, add to the economy?

Probably every state in the Union has stationers that collect data on the economics that feed or drive their state. When Utah developed the RAC councils, they had us all out on a three day training and information meeting in Salt Lake City, where they gave us tons and tons of information on tourism and hunter dollars. It may well be hard to sort out the money that different hunting groups bring into our economy, but we are all connected and impact the other sports. You could probably contact one of the DWR offices and be lead to that information or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for a national number.........

(some interesting reading)

http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.ph ... ost2748546

Animal Hoarding: Fabricating and Criminalizing Mental Illness
Following the Money
Money Mysteries Part 1: Hurricane Katrina HSUS Fundraising
Money Mysteries Part 2: The Michael Vick dogs and Stolen Sympathies
Did the Humane Society (HSUS) Fail to Account for Political/Lobbying Activity of Personnel on IRS Tax Filings?


WSB-TV Investigates HSUS Fundraising Practises: Is There More?
Published on 16 May 2009 by ESaunders AR-HR.com in Animal Rights, Human Responsibility, Legislation
Thursday May 14, 2009, the first day a mainstream media organization dared to publish an investigation into the fundraising practises of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)._ WSB-TV, the Atlanta GA affiliate for ABC published an article and video segment titled “Where Humane Society Donations Really Go“.__
The WSB-TV article addressed a number of important points that are commonly mis-understood about the Humane Society of the United States:
The Humane Society of the United States has little to no affiliation to local shelters and local Humane Societies, despite having_a name that leads_to the convenient_ but mistaken identification of the HSUS as the parent organization.
Only a small percentage of donations made to the Humane Society of the United States are granted to local shelters and Humane Societies._ In 2007, less than 6 million dollars were handed out as US grants out of_ over 152_million* taken in (less than 4%*)._ Of the almost 4%, a large percentage of the grants were handed out to organizations that did not provide direct care to animals in need.__
After Hurricane Katrina, Humane Society of the United States fundraising efforts raised 34 million dollars._ By 2 years after Hurricane Katrina, only 52% (18 million)_ could be accounted for as spent on Katrina-related activites._ The connection between reconnecting animals with their owners, the premise for the Hurricane Katrina fundraising, was tenuous at best for a number of the projects indicated as supported by Hurricane Katrina funds. _As of the 2 year mark, funds related to the Gulf Coast began to make a shift to HSUS legislative goals again.
Channel 2 attendance at a local HSUS meeting found the 2 hour discussion to be dominated by activist planning and lobbying efforts.__This impression was confirmed as accurate by Cheryl McAuliffe, Georgia Director for the HSUS._ Ms McAuliffe also confirmed that all budgeting was directed from the Humane Society of the United States Washington headquarters
By Friday morning, there was a response from HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle claiming WSB-TV had used discredited_source information from the Center_for Consumer Freedom (CCF).__It is difficult to understand how Mr. Pacelle can take the position that the CCF information has been discredited when it is able to be verified independently using HSUS IRS documents and HSUS press releases._ Mr. Pacelle also indicated that all funds raised for the Hurricane Katrina crisis have been spent helping Katrina families and pets, yet this is also established as dubious, based on HSUS press releases. (unless introducing items such as cock-fighting bills_are counted in this position) By Friday evening, all links to this ground-breaking and courageous article had disappeared from the WSB-TV website.
Yet, the most interesting result of the investigation is a point not (yet) pursued by WSB-TV._ Is the HSUS in compliance with requirements to maintain its 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt status?_ According to Cheryl McAuliffe, Georgia Director for the HSUS, activist and lobbying efforts form the bulk of her activities._ Yet, according to IRS 501 (c) 3 regulations:
“In general, no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying)._ A 501(c)(3) organization may engage in some lobbying, but too much lobbying activity risks loss of tax-exempt status.
Legislation includes action by Congress, any state legislature, any local council, or similar governing body, with respect to acts, bills, resolutions, or similar items (such as legislative confirmation of appointive office), or by the public in referendum, ballot initiative, constitutional amendment, or similar procedure._ It does not include actions by executive, judicial, or administrative bodies.
An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.”
_Yet the_Humane Society of the Unites States dedicates_a significant amount of resources to its efforts to introduce and influence legislation as demonstrated by the portion of its website tracking HSUS legislative efforts at the state and federal levels as well as through ballot initiatives._
This raises an important question. With an income of_over 152_million annually, is the IRS being cheated out of substanial revenue if the Humane Society of the United States is not in compliance with the 501 (c) 3 charitable organization requirements?__ The HSUS claimed involvement in 140_ legislative bills_at the state level in 2008 alone, has claimed credit for a great deal of legislation in 2009 and publicly acknowledges_’urging’ assorted_legislators on a variety of bills._

Cody,

Very well put! You were not out of line or rude, you simply told her the facts and did a job most of us don't want to... I don't know if I could have kept my fingers from taking over and saying stuff that would put me in jail over this whole thing.