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Wayne Pacelle
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Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization with more than 11 million members and constituents, annual revenue of $130 million, and assets of more than $200 million.

Pacelle's work on animal issues has been featured in thousands of newspapers and magazines across the country. He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, and has appeared on almost all of the major network television programs -– including The Today Show, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Good Morning America and ABC's Primetime Live. Pacelle blogs daily at Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation. Pacelle is the author of the forthcoming book “The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them,” which will be published in April 2011 by William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins.

In 2008, The Los Angeles Times reported, "Pacelle has retooled a venerable organization seen as a mild-mannered protector of dogs and cats into an aggressive interest group flexing muscle in state legislatures and courtrooms." In 2007, The New York Times reported, "The arrival of Wayne Pacelle as head of the Humane Society in 2004 both turbo-charged the farm animal welfare movement and gave it a sheen of respectability." In 2008, Supermarket News included Pacelle on its annual Power 50 list of influential individuals in food marketing, writing that "there's no denying his growing influence on how animal agriculture is practiced in the United States."

Pacelle was named one of NonProfit Times' "Executives of the Year" in 2005 for his leadership in responding to the needs of animals affected by the Gulf hurricanes. In 2008, NonProfit Times named Pacelle to its annual Power and Influence Top 50 nonprofit executives.

Pacelle received his B.A. in History and Studies in the Environment from Yale University in 1987.

Blog Entries by Wayne Pacelle

Puppy Mill Horror Uncovered in Mississippi

(4) Comments | Posted May 22, 2013 | 3:40 PM

Puppy mills, by definition, come up short on animal welfare, taking moral and practical shortcuts in order to churn out dogs for the pet trade - by confining animals indefinitely, breeding them every heat cycle, and denying them proper veterinary care. But the conditions our rescue...

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Horse Meat on the American Dinner Plate?

(1) Comments | Posted February 26, 2013 | 3:50 PM

Can horse meat find its way into the U.S. food supply? I would not be the least bit surprised if it does turn up, now that people are starting to look. The U.S. Department of Agriculture largely relies upon a self-reporting system that leaves us at the...

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A Scientific Indictment of Animal Research and Testing

(6) Comments | Posted February 20, 2013 | 2:30 PM

"What are the alternatives to using animals in medical research?" This is a legitimate question I am often asked, and now, due to scientific innovation and increasing evidence of the shortcomings of animal research, it is becoming easier to answer. A newly published scientific paper shows...

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Policymakers Hamper Progress for Animals

(5) Comments | Posted December 4, 2012 | 11:48 AM

It is amazing to me how often the U.S. Congress works not only against common sense, but also contrary to the national interest. Take two trade-related issues currently being debated and deliberated upon in that body: importation of sport-hunted polar bear trophies, and the trade in nine species of large constricting...

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Rescuing 139 Dogs, Cats, Horses and Birds in North Carolina

(3) Comments | Posted October 1, 2012 | 1:28 PM

There's never a respite for our Animal Rescue Team. Last week, the Humane Society of the United States' Animal Rescue Team helped animal control officers and local groups in Person County, N.C., save more than 130 animals from miserable conditions in a hoarding situation.

Kimberley Alboum,...

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Nearly 500 Dogs Rescued From Suffering Last Week

(6) Comments | Posted July 26, 2012 | 5:18 PM

It's especially painful to see people and places that purport to help animals do precisely the opposite. That's what we discovered last week when The Humane Society of the United States' Animal Rescue Team helped the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable and Montgomery County Animal Control

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Turning the Tide Against Puppy Mills

(0) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 1:04 PM

Recently, I blogged about exciting news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would propose a rule requiring large-scale puppy mills and kitten mills selling pets online, by phone, or by mail to be licensed and inspected for basic standards of care. This is a reform we've been working...

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Burger King Leads the Charge for Better Animal Welfare

(3) Comments | Posted April 26, 2012 | 6:49 PM

Yesterday, I broke the news on MSNBC's Morning Joe that The HSUS and Burger King are jointly announcing that the world's second-largest fast food burger chain will eliminate both battery cages and gestation crates from its U.S. supply chain. According to its...

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Kreider Battery-Cage Egg Investigation Highlights Need for Federal Bill

(26) Comments | Posted April 16, 2012 | 11:39 AM

Last week, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times broke news of The Humane Society of the United States' latest undercover investigation focused on industrial agriculture -- a large-scale, battery cage facility for hens in Manheim, Pa., that produces 1.6 million eggs a day. Kristof's piece is online,...

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Hop to It: Help Rabbits this Easter

(7) Comments | Posted April 6, 2012 | 5:20 PM

The spring season brings familiar signs of life's renewal―birds building their nests, frogs waking from their winter hibernation, and other wild animals rearing their newborns. As you might imagine, our Cape Wildlife Center in Massachusetts―one of our three wildlife rehabilitation centers―is busy in springtime caring for young raccoons,...

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McDonald's Moves To End Gestation Crates

(23) Comments | Posted February 13, 2012 | 12:57 PM

It's the biggest and perhaps best-known restaurant chain in the world. And today, in a joint statement with The Humane Society of the United States, it announced its intention to get out of the business of gestation crates for breeding sows in the United States. McDonald's declared that...

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HSUS Documents Animal Abuse at Major Pork Producers

(2) Comments | Posted February 1, 2012 | 6:41 PM

The Humane Society of the United States went undercover again to record what's happening at factory farms, and yesterday we released our latest findings. We announced them at a press conference in Oklahoma City, not far from the pig production facilities we examined.

For four months while pregnant,...

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Tigers, Leopards and Other Exotics Saved From Neglect

(2) Comments | Posted January 27, 2012 | 10:32 AM

The Humane Society of the United States' Animal Rescue Team has saved cats, dogs, horses, rabbits and even rats from all sorts of crises and cruelty situations. But this week's main event was a particularly exotic mission: rescuing three tigers, two leopards, three cougars, two wolf-hybrids and a...

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C Minus: Subpar Score for Obama Administration on Animal Welfare Issues

(14) Comments | Posted January 12, 2012 | 5:26 PM

Report Card for 2011

Executive Summary: The Obama administration had B-level scores for the first two years of the term, but earned only a C-minus from The Humane Society of the United States for its performance on animal welfare issues in 2011. The Obama administration had a...

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New HSUS Investigation Reveals Deception By Online Puppy Seller

(2) Comments | Posted December 7, 2011 | 1:23 PM

Online shopping is a great way to buy holiday gifts, but not when it comes to getting a companion animal. In our latest undercover investigation, released today, Humane Society of the United States investigators and attorneys dug into the world of Internet puppy sellers and found not only the underlying...

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New PSAs Get the Word Out for Shelter Pets

(1) Comments | Posted November 16, 2011 | 7:08 PM

While euthanasia rates for dogs and cats in our nation's animal care and control facilities have been in steady decline for more than three decades, there are still millions of healthy dogs and cats euthanized every year. We as a nation shouldn't stand for that.

There are thousands of organizations...

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"Ideal" Conditions or a Big McFib?

(2) Comments | Posted November 8, 2011 | 2:56 PM

If I told you that pigs confined in gestation crates -- cages barely larger than the animals' bodies, in which they don't have enough space even to turn around for nearly their whole lives -- were living in "ideal" conditions where their "every need is met," you'd probably...

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Saving More Than 500 Suffering Dogs in Canada

(5) Comments | Posted September 21, 2011 | 6:01 PM

In the past few years in particular, The Humane Society of the United States has attacked the puppy mill problem from every angle, including working with law enforcement to shut down rogue commercial breeding operations in the United States, rescuing the dogs in distress, and drawing attention to...

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More Than 500 Rescued Cats Up for Adoption in Florida

(3) Comments | Posted August 24, 2011 | 1:27 PM

In early June, The Humane Society of the United States' Animal Rescue Team deployed to Florida to help Alachua County Animal Services remove nearly 700 cats from appalling conditions, in one of the largest cat rescues in American history. We called on our partners to support...

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Landmark Agreement to Help Millions of Hens

(5) Comments | Posted July 8, 2011 | 4:56 PM

The goal of the Humane Society of the United States is not endless campaigning or conflict with political adversaries, but to find a place where we can forge solutions that produce tangible and meaningful outcomes for animals and show a new way forward in society. And that means sitting down...

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