Driving home from skating the past few weeks, I’d occasionally notice something on the sign at the old Lake County Fairgrounds about boycotting Yellow Tail wine.

I was curious, so I visited their site. It seems that Yellow Tail donated $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States. So why call for a boycott? What monster doesn’t want to help the puppies and kitties without homes languishing in a shelter or being killed?

Well here’s the thing — I don’t know enough about the HSUS right now to form much of an opinion either way, but from what I have read, they’re:

1. not affiliated with the Humane Society that runs local shelters.
2. more concerned with animal rights, along the lines of PETA, instead of helping homeless animals.

So according to my Google-fu, we’re supposed to boycott Yellow Tail & their involvement with the HSUS because:

“[HSUS] is the organization that has launched campaigns in numerous states to enact unwieldy animal welfare laws that can and have driven livestock producers out of business, thus forcing farms to close and having major impacts on prices consumers will pay for meat and other products at the grocery store.” ¹

Even after I read the above, I was like, “‘Unweildy?’ For whom? The companies who mass-produce livestock?” Have you seen Food, Inc yet? Not necessarily a bad thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those animal rights freaks that has the “meat is murder” bumper sticker and believes that my pet cats are slaves (and hell, I just bought a leather jacket). I do eat a mostly vegetarian diet, bordering on vegan now, but still intake of animal products (ie: BACON!) occasionally. I try to buy organic and/or locally-grown produce, but damn it’s expensive.

I also abhor PETA and what they do, and if I research further I suspect that I’ll probably come to the same option of the HSUS.

But I do believe that there are improvements that need to be made in animal welfare, especially in meat & dairy production, and it has to start somewhere.

In a blog posted March 30 by Wayne Pacelle, the leader of HSUS, he said, “We believe in the Three Rs — reducing the consumption of meat and other animal-based foods; refining the diet by eating products only from methods of production, transport and slaughter that minimize pain and distress; and replacing meat and other animal-based foods in the diet with plant-based foods.” ²

That doesn’t sound so bad to me. I firmly believe the consumption of large amounts of animal products, along with how said products are being produced and the business behind it, is why society in general is obese and plagued with health problems.

So will I boycott Yellow Tail? No. But I never purchased it before anyway. I will not go out of the way to purchase it, either. I do believe in some of the basic ideas behind the HSUS, but do not know much either way yet to form an informed opinion — and I do not do much of anything blindly.

[ED NOTE]: The above is my opinion, and I do not claim to know what I’m talking about. Feel free to comment — I am willing to listen to what you have to say but I will not engage in any debate.

¹ source | ² source | another source