Animal welfare and animal rights have surged to the top of the news-dogpile, even sharing space in the New York Times with the U.S. primaries. Now that there are millions to be had in the animal welfare industry, the inevitable dogfights over credit are erupting and it's getting nastier all the time. Soon there will be lawsuits over which organization really deserves credit and who defamed whom. The law is clear about taking credit for another's work... it's theft, plain and simple. We've seen that happen right here in BC when a big organization took the credit for a small organization's truly heroic rescue of many chained dogs, and the small organization's supporters had to threaten a lawsuit.

Who will win the p.r. battles for the increasing money to he had? The winners will be the organizations with the biggest budgets for p.r. of course.

Unless they make fatal tactical errors. For example, like PETA quietly killing puppies and kittens for decades. I stopped donating to PETA when the proof of that was incontrovertible. That is not to say that PETA isn't doing extremely valuable work, just that I was revolted when I found out about the killing it secretly and (to me) dishonestly, did, and so I could no longer trust it to be honest in any way. Once trust is undermined in enough donators by revelations of huge salaries and ruthless killing, for example, a lot of money has to be spent on p.r. to get new donators.

But no organization, no matter how much it spends on slick p.r., can survive too many revelations of dishonesty. This is one dogfight that is going to be interesting to watch.