The Watchdog

The Watchdog monitors fundraising, spending, and political activity in the name of animal and habitat protection--both pro and con. His empty bowl stands for all the bowls left empty when some take more than they need.

From: Animal People March 1997

Peter Gerard hires lawyer, repays a principle

WASHINGTON D.C.––Under pressure from Friends of Animals and other sponsors to provide a full accounting of funds received and spent in connection with the June 1996 World Animal Awareness Week and March for the Animals, National Alliance for Animals executive director Peter Gerard, formerly known as Peter Linck, recently retained attorney Roger Galvin, of Rockville, Maryland, to tell FoA that as of January 8, “the audit is not completed yet,” and to argue that FoA “received more benefits in terms of participation and publicity than its $5,000 contribution warranted.”
Photograph by Craig Filipacchi	The March, crowning the week of activities, drew just 3,000 participants according to the official National Parks Service count––3% of the 100,000 Gerard’s fundraising letters predicted would attend, and 21,000 fewer than the crowd at a similar march that Gerard coordinated in 1990.
After the 1996 march, FoA demanded a refund of sponsorship, arguing that Gerard failed to adequately promote World Animal Awareness Week, and inquired about apparent significant discrepancies in related financial statements. The FoA inquires have been echoed by at least two of the other World Animal Awareness Week sponsors. As ANIMAL PEOPLE pointed out in September 1996, the World Animal Awareness Week program thanked donors for contributions which according to the sponsorship schedule should have totalled at least $754,925. Together with ticket sales revenue, which Gerard in a September 3 statement said came to $205,419, Gerard according to his own claims should have collected cash or in-kind gifts of goods and services totalling a minimum of $960,344. However, in the September 3 statement Gerard acknowledged receiving only $376,157 in cash, and provided no accounting of in-kind contributions.
Photograph by Craig Filipacchi	Meanwhile, in April 1996, still predicting a crowd of 100,000, Gerard distributed an estimated World Animal Awareness Week budget of $218,000 plus an unspecified amount for publicity. His September 3 statement claimed cash outlay of $674,339, including $13,320 for publicity.
ANIMAL PEOPLE has received copies of correspondence indicating that Gerard on November 25 repaid $114,000 in two separate checks to one World Animal Awareness Week creditor, Elephant Alliance president Florence Lambert, who had investigated legal action against Gerard. Among the items in hand are a letter from Lambert of September 30, making a loan of $5,000 to the National Alliance for Animals “to help with your campaign to stop the horrible trade in nonhuman primates,” an issue in conection with which ANIMAL PEOPLE has discovered no subsequent record of significant NAA activity. In a letter of March 30, 1995, Gerard instructed Lambert as to how she should write her will to leave her estate to the National Alliance for Animals. In an undated letter, Gerard wrote to Lambert, by hand, “We will never be able to thank you enough for helping us purchase such a wonderful car.” A letter from Gerard to Lambert dated May 13, 1996, was headed to “Mom,” thanking her for “always being there” to “bail me out of a financial crisis.” Gerard acknowledged receipt of a loan from Lambert of $20,000 in an undated letter apparently written during mid-October 1996, and apparently raised her suspicion with a letter dated October 8, 1996, in in which he asked her to approach her former husband on his behalf, seeking a loan of $135,000 to be used in paying off his house mortgage.
	Gerard’s October 8 letter to Lambert also included a eyebrow-raiser for those who remember that the ancestor of NAA was called the National Alliance for Animal Legislation, and that the stated purpose of the 1990 March for the Animals was to support passage of four bills then before Congress. “Unfortunately,” Gerard wrote, “many of the major groups in our movement are run by liberals who are more intent on wasting precious public funds on electing incompetent bleeding-hearts than doing the more fundamental and important foundational work of educating an innocent citizenry.”

HSUS told to give back Canadian Funds

Ontario Court of Justice judge Bruce C. Hawkins on January 7 issued an interim order that the Humane Society of the United States must repay $740,000 to the Humane Society of Canada, in advance of the yet-to-be-scheduled trial of a lawsuit in which HSC and the Canadian incorporation of Humane Society International charge that HSUS improperly seized $1,012,663 in funds HSC raised within Canada. Wrote Hawkins of the February 1996 seizure, “I cannot imagine a more glaring conflict of interest or a more egregious breach of fiduciary duty. It demonstrates an overweening arrogance of a type seldom seen.” HSI was founded as the umbrella for HSUS foreign affiliates in 1991; HSI-Canada and HSC were founded in 1993. The three-member HSI-Canada and HSC founding board included John Hoyt, then president of HSI and now president emeritus, as well as longtime president of HSUS, and Paul Irwin, his second-in-command since 1975, now president of HSUS. Irwin, born in Canada, claimed Canadian residence on a passport application in order to get around the Canadian requirement that the majority of board members be Canadians. Irwin’s primary residence is in fact in Maryland. His Canadian passport was later revoked.

International

	Greenpeace International and Greenpeace France on January 8 sued anonymous author “Olivier Vermont” and publisher Albin Michel for issuing purported “defamatory statements, untruths, distortions of the facts and absurd allegations” in a volume entitled The Hidden Face of Greenpeace: Infiltration into the Heart of the International Ecology Movement. According to “Vermont,” who claims to have worked within both Greenpeace International and Greenpeace France, only 6% of the funds the Greenpeace organizations raise is actually spent on environmental protection. He also asserts that Greenpeace has “secret dealings with certain states such as China and Russia,” not surprising for an organization engaged in international environmental diplomacy.
Greenpeace jumped into further controversy by announcing closure of Greenpeace Ireland for not meeting fundraising goals and operating at a loss since 1994 despite a 42% rise in membership, from 3,200 to 4,630. The estimated break-even point was reportedly 10,000 members.
Based on wire service coverage, our January/February 1997 cover article “Humanitarians confront the Cold War legacy” identified Fsako Nogami as president of the Japan Anti-Vivisection Association and Anko Shiina as former president. We have since received a notice from Shiina, identifying herself as still president of JAVA, asserting that, “After Ms. Nogami resigned from her position as director of JAVA, the title then used in place of ‘president,’ she began to use her former title and the address of JAVA in public without permission.” According to Shiina, JAVA on December 27, 1995 won a court ruling that Nogami is not the president of JAVA and has no right to use such a title. Despite the ruling, however, Nogami appears to have represented herself thusly to media as recently as November.