Thursday, February 4, 2010

Yellow Tail Donates To HSUS

Yellow Tail Wine Gives Money to HSUS
Sportsmen Urged to Voice Protest
From US Sportsmen's Alliance

The Australian maker of Yellow Tail Wine has pledged $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation’s largest anti-hunting organization. This partnership offers further proof of HSUS’ work to spin its animal rights message in a way as to seem mainstream.

As HSUS states on its website:

“… the HSUS has paired with [yellow tail] for the "tails for tails" program. Through the end of March, you'll see special [yellow tail] displays bearing The HSUS name and logo in stores across the country.

Through "tails for tails," [yellow tail] is donating $100,000 to support us and our programs to help animals, including our Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest.”

Alerted to this relationship, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) immediately contacted the American distributor of the wine, W.J. Deutsch and Sons Ltd., and urged them to ask Yellow Tail to sever its relationship with HSUS.

A copy of the letter the USSA sent to management can be found by clicking here. Thus far, the USSA has not heard from W.J. Deutsch regarding our request.

“This wine maker has fallen into the same trap as other companies who donate money to HSUS,” said Bud Pidgeon, president of the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance. “They believe they are helping animals in shelters when in fact they are funding an agenda from an animal rights group that is largely divergent from the vast majority of Americans.” Link

Yesterday morning I became aware of Yellow Tail Wines plan to donate $100,000 to HSUS. As an amateur wine enthusiast, I was very familiar with the Yellow Tail name. They are an Australian wine company that sells many different varieties of wine at a very reasonable price. The good value you get with this wine has made it quite popular in the United States and readily available almost anywhere. Unfortunately they were somehow convinced that donating money to the HSUS would be a great way to help needy dogs and cats. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m sure their heart was in the right place, but their money is headed to the wrong one.

According to the HSUS tax returns, chances are that if Yellow Tail does give them the full $100,000, only $500 would end up going to a hands-on pet shelter. Historically, only one-half of one percent of their $200,000,000 budget does.

In order to let Yellow Tail know how I felt about this, I looked up their Facebook fan page and left a comment. In addition to that, I put it out on Twitter and our Advocates for Ag Facebook fan page, and asked everyone else to do the same. And boy did they ever! In the last 24 hours, several hundred comments have been left by people from all over the country voicing their frustrations. This same scene is being played out on their Twitter page. So far, one single response has been offered by Yellow Tail, only stating that they will be announcing something soon. That’s PR speak for “Uh oh, what do we do now?”

By not doing the necessary research and having an entire industry, one of which they are part of, calling them out, Yellow Tail is now in a near no-win situation. The high paid lawyers from HSUS will no doubt put the pressure on them to fulfill their previous commitment, but if they do, it will be at the expense of thousands of upset customers. It’s not impossible for them save face though. My guess is that not many of the executives over at HSUS (where more than 40 of them make greater than $100,000) drink much Yellow Tail. I’m sure it’s beneath their standards. However, Yellow Tail has become wine that hard working Americans, many of whom are involved in agriculture, do enjoy. If they care about their customers, they will stop this from happening.

If you haven’t left your comments on
Yellow Tail’s Facebook page, please do so. You can also contact them through Twitter at @YellowTail_USA . Thanks for everyone’s help. Yesterday was a great example of what can happen when Team Agriculture suits up together to make it’s voice be heard! ~Troy

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