Yellow Tail Says No To Future HSUS Donations

Yellow Tail shows support for farmers and ranchers
By Drovers news source Friday, February 19, 2010

The Animal Agriculture Alliance commends Casella Wines, the Australian producers of [yellow tail] on their commitment to support farmers and ranchers around the world.

"The people at [yellow tail] have worked with us over the past few days in what we believe is a genuine effort to repair ill feeling caused by the sponsorship of the Humane Society of the United States. We are satisfied the controversy and anxiety it caused was unintentional," said Kay Johnson Smith, Executive Vice President. "They have committed to in the future only supporting welfare organizations with a sole commitment to animal care. As farmers themselves, theyre committed to supporting agriculture, as evidenced by their annual upcoming barbeque promotion. "

The Alliance received the following letter from [yellow tail] on February 19:


Dear Kay Johnson Smith, Animal Agriculture Alliance:

I am writing to thank you for your feedback regarding our [tails] for tails program.The spirit and intention of our donation to the Humane Society of the United States was for the celebration of animals. Being farmers ourselves we support those who care for their land and their environment, just as we do. We are proud of our rural heritage and value a solid relationship with agricultural communities around the world.

[yellow tail] is committed to the plight of animals in need, and we know that animal welfare groups work in different ways to advance their cause. We are interested in the welfare of animals, and in financially supporting animal welfare causes that provide direct care services to help animals, not on taking positions on any animal lobbying issues. We pledge to you that any future support for animal welfare will go to organizations specifically devoted to hands-on care, such as rescue, sterilization, feeding, or disaster assistance.

Like the wines we produce, we are friendly Australians who enjoy bringing people together, and look forward to doing so through our annual spring and summer promotional campaign "[tails] around the barbecue" and our "holiday enter[tail]ing" campaign. We very much value your opinion and wish to thank-you for your honesty.

Sincerely,

[yellow tail] customer Service Team

"We have invited the people at [yellow tail] to work closely with the Alliance, an offer that is open to wine makers around the world. As we all know, meat, cheeses and wine are natural partners." Johnson Smith said. "We are happy to put this unfortunate incident behind us."

The Alliance is impressed with the agriculture community's use of social media and encourages farmers and ranchers to use the momentum to continue to educate the public about the importance of American agriculture on Facebook and Twitter. Producers who are interested in learning more about using social media tools to advocate for agriculture should contact the Alliance's Communications Coordinator, Sarah Hubbart, at shubbart@animalagalliance.org.

Article Link

After being bombarded with negative comments from thousands of people for their donation to the HSUS, the Casella family and owners of the Yellow Tail brand, have said they will not support HSUS in the future. Not only that, but they will not be supporting any other animal rights organization that doesn’t do hands-on work with animals. This is certainly good news for our local shelters that suffer from the work of the HSUS. Even more important in this issue though is that every other company in the world has been put on notice that a donation to the world’s wealthiest vegan animal rights organization will come with consequences. I want to thank Yellow Tail for making this statement. I look forward to seeing their future donations actually going to helping animals. Who knows, maybe I will even celebrate their upcoming donations with a glass of Yellow Tail wine.

Aussie Media Reporting On Yellow Tail Donation

Yellow Tail donation gets website wagging
BY LUCY MARTIN
15 Feb, 2010 10:41 AM
(This is from an Aussie new site, AreaNews.com)

IT SEEMS Casella Wines' American honeymoon is over, with the Yenda-based company finding itself at the centre of a bizarre backlash after a donation program went horribly wrong.

The saga began with good intentions when the US branch of Yellow Tail announced it would donate $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

The problem is, HSUS is widely regarded to be a militant vegan organisation that, rather than actually helping animals with the donation, would spend it on lobbying the government, violent raids and attempts to eradicate agriculture.

The response was explosive.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance released a statement claiming only $4000 of the donation would go to animal aid, while Dallas web commentator Caleb Schultz took aim on his popular agriculture blog.

"The problem is, HSUS simply don't do much to help animals - they continually push their extreme vegetarian views on the American public and basically want to see animal agriculture cease to exist. The bottom line is, they want you out of business if you're a livestock producer," Mr Schultz wrote. Read More

On a daily basis more and more media outlets are reporting on Yellow Tail wines disastrous decision to donate to the HSUS. Because of the grassroots effort by farmers, ranchers, pet owners, outdoorsmen and many others, the HSUS is being exposed for who they really are. While it may be easier for the Casella family to ignore what is being said in the US, this latest article in an Australian newspaper will harder to look past. We need to keep these efforts moving forward. Please visit with your local businesses that sell wine to let them know what is happening and contact your local media as well. It’s probably too late to stop HSUS from getting this donation but the bigger story here, and the one HSUS is most worried about, is how this will affect future corporate donations. You efforts up to this point have them running scared, let’s make them pick up the pace even more.