"Jason Hamaker, a ranch maintenance supervisor, said his bosses started talking last fall about cutting back on medications and feed for some of the older animals. The sicker the animals became, the more justified their deaths by lethal injection would appear, he said. "They said they wanted a total of 50 gone within a couple of months, and then another 30 after that," he said. In the last four weeks, according to Hamaker, 23 animals have been put down."

People like Hamaker, willing to say what they know about how animals are being used as fundraising props by many so-called animal welfare organizations are, sadly, too rare, but they are in good company.

"Cowardice asks the question, "is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "is it polite". Vanity asks the question, "is it popular?" But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a point when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor polite, nor popular, but one must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Elie Wiesel