I am pretty damn angry at LUSH this morning, because one of the organizations they are currently running a Charity Pot for – CompassionWorks International – has spent the day purposefully slandering and lambasting all conservation efforts done by any and every zoo. In fact, their webpage declares that they exist to do battle against “the circus, the rodeo, marine mammal confinement, zoos, horse racing, trophy hunting, factory farming and other industries that put dollars ahead of lives.” I commend LUSH’s commitment to moving away from animal testing, but what the support of this wholly unprofessional non-profit dedicated to misleading the public in support of an anti-science, anti-conservation agenda – loses the company my support, and I hope, yours.
Yesterday, April the giraffe gave birth. While the rest of us were learning from a close-up view of a natural process we’d never get to see otherwise, CompassionWorks International posted this:
Needless to say, zoo staff around the world were pretty upset by this misrepresentation of the ethos of good, modern zoos, and tried to contact their page to do education about how AZA-accredited zoos are the leaders in conservation projects around the world. Rather than engaging in a dialogue with them – as is the appropriate response from an organization whose actual agenda is to educate the public – CompassionWorks International deleted all the comments they disagreed with, reveling in the ‘battle’ with evil zookeepers, and then blocking anyone who dared to try to do any education on or related to their page. Here are just a sample of their posts about it:
LUSH, this is not what I want my money to support – and I have been an avid supporter of your company. CompassionWorks International has proved themselves to not be an organization that legitimately campaigns for the betterment of animals – they’re exploiting and perpetuating misinformation and using shock value to prop-up an agenda. They have taunted, blasphemed, and blocked people in the last 24 hours who have spent their entire lives working to support endangered species and they have deleted posts talking about successful conservation projects they were unable to refute. CompassionWorks International is blatantly lying when they say that good zoos do not contribute to conservation; a small samples of species zoos have brought back from the brink of extinction and re-established in the wild contains black-footed ferrets, Cayman blue iguanas, Araban oryx, Attwater’s prarie chickens, whooping cranes, red wolves, and golden lion tamarins).
LUSH, your support of this company and their online behavior is appalling. I expect better of a company that is actually dedicated to improving animal welfare. I expect you, at the very least, to actually vet the ethos of the organizations my money goes to support when I buy your products – much less, I actually expected you to support organizations involved in active efforts to improve welfare, not run radical animal rights campaigns that dupe the public with twisted rhetoric and tear-jerking photos.
Followers, I don’t usually use this blog to be a political platform, but I’m appalled and pissed off, and this falls under the realm for this blog of being a critical consumer of organizations and companies involved in animal advocacy. If you disagree with LUSH’s support of this non-profit, like I do, you can email them at customercare@lush.com, tweet at them at @lushcosmetics, or tag them on tumblr at @lushcosmetics.
I suggest you tag @lushcosmetics in your reblog so that they notice, and include a note about your favorite successful conservation project that zoos have supported.
@lushcosmetics the money that goes into modern AZA accredited zoos and aquariums is used largely for animal care, improving keeping and enclosures, research and other conservation efforts. Zoos today function like modern arcs, sustaining and breeding animals with a focus on genetic diversity while populations in the wild struggle to survive from poaching, environmental changes and increasing habitat loss. Most zoos also work with organizations that focus on wild population issues to help restore them while also working with captive reproduction. Success stories with this are all over the place from the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret that had been extinct in North America, to less charismatic animals that still need help like beetles and amphibians. Yes, it would be nice for all these animals to be able to live wild and free, but that ideal wild habitat no longer exists.
The zoo/aquarium I’m part of was a main contributor of reaearch, manpower, and money to the SECORE project which is continuing efforts to restore corals to the reef by planting colonies started within captivity.
I am a huge supporter of your products, and ask that you please actually research what zoos do instead of aligning with an organization that not only misinterprets, but blocks and deletes any dissension. If they stand by an ideal, they should be able to respond to zookeepers defending what they do. Anyone who responds to disagreement by gloating while deleting evidence against them is more focused on performative smugness and anger than actually helping anything.
theclumsiestninja 