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** April 11, 2024
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** DEAR FRIENDS,
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Thank you for all your calls and emails.

In an effort for full transparency and honesty, in order to update you on the last 12 hours we are going to show you the emails between Steve, Founder of SHARK and Cynthia, Executive Director for Hooved Animals Humane Society.

Most of you received the following email from Cynthia in regards to the emails that you sent.

“Thank you for the email. I am glad to see that you are concerned about the situation. I believe it is important to address your concerns so that you know that HAHS has and is actively working on the situation. In fact, we were at the most recent Boone County Board Meeting. We have been involved with the state's attorneys and are reaching out to appropriate individuals regarding this matter. We have been working with various animal control agencies. Your concerns are valid, and I am glad to report that your judgment that HAHS is not doing anything is incorrect.”

Cynthia Glensgard

Executive Director

Steve’s initial response to Cynthia.

Ms. Glensgard,

You state that you, or perhaps some of your associates were at the most recent Boone County Board Meeting. I was there. I spoke. No one spoke from HAHS. I have been talking to a number of board members for the last couple years. In the last two-plus years, your organization has never once been mentioned.

As for working with the state's attorneys, are you talking about Boone County? I'd like to know who you are talking to in that office.

Back at the beginning of this campaign, a couple years ago, there were rumblings from HAHS that it was going to do something. Then the rodeo people started hurling bogus racism charges around, and that was pretty much the last we heard of HAHS. Meanwhile, some of the worst cruelty to be found in the state is occurring right in your proverbial back yard.

Your email to Ms. ———- is devoid of specifics, while SHARK's involvement is easy to see. We have droned almost all of these events since August 2022, gathering an enormous amount of hard evidence in the process. Our documentation has led to criminal charges and court orders to curb some, but far from all of the abuses.

We have actively communicated with board members and the state's attorneys in four counties. Along with the California-based Humane Farming Association, we are suing Boone County.

You say you are active on this issue, so what you are doing? Your email to Ms. ——— is rhetoric devoid of specifics. The horses and steers being abused at these events don't need empty rhetoric - they need real effort. Provide that detail, please, and I will be the first to apologize.

Steve Hindi

SHARK

"Steve,

My investigations manager, also a resident of Boone County, was in attendance at the most recent meeting. She specifically shared how much internal fighting among the board members occurred, which resulted in several issues not being resolved. I was not able to personally attend, so I made sure a representative was there so I could be kept abreast of the matter.

Our organizations are supposed to be working together, and your most recent email is definitely not one supporting a team approach for the benefit of animals and is not based on facts. HAHS takes a legislative approach to matters. I have personally spoken with the head of animal control in both McHenry County and Boone County, providing suggestions on wording for permitting, etc. I have personally worked with an attorney for these suggestions. I have personally sent emails and had follow-up phone calls. I will attach screenshots of a couple of my first emails.

I have personally spoken with the head of the Department of Agriculture on the matter. I have other items that I have worked on as well. My job is not to explain my organization to you. My job is to work for the animals.

Just because our approach is different does not mean we are not working on the matter. I have spoken to several SHARK people as well as supporters. Not once have you personally reached out to me. Our organizations have to work together, and they have to be better than this if we are going to affect change. This is not a mudslinging campaign for supporters' dollars; this is a campaign to effect change for the betterment of the animal's welfare. I sincerely hope you will correct your email, and we can put this behind us and move forward in a professional manner that helps animals, not target other humane organizations.

Just so you know, HAHS is happy to announce that after two years of legal, HAHS has just secured animal cruelty charges on a case where we impounded five horses. We still have other criminal charges pending. We are not sitting around, we are working! Your e-blast only hurts animals when you question other humane organizations' work without personal knowledge.

Please let me know if I can count on you and your organization as a partner in the fight against animal cruelty.

Ms. Glensgard,

SHARK has a long history of working with other animal protection organizations. That said, it is not necessary that we are partners so long as we are actually pulling in the same direction. My problem is that the voices of organizations like ours must be raised at this point. Quiet has not worked. There are those in Boone County who are clearly in the pocket of the rodeo people, both on the board and in the state's attorney's office. The state's attorney is making blatantly false claims to the board. One example is claiming that because something is not specifically outlawed that makes it legal. That's nonsense, as I am certain you know. One cannot, for instance, hold a gerbil stomp simply because the law doesn't say that gerbil stomping is illegal. As Dr. Bromwell once stated, "it's not possible to make a law to counter the cruelty of every goofy human."

The state's attorney is allowing new permits to be handed out to locations that have a history of abuse, even though she admits that those permits are discretionary, and can/should be withheld for lack of compliance. Every single location we've investigated has been out of compliance every single time, and yet this state's attorney is handing out more permits to the same violators.

Some of the nonsense going on in Boone County is really off the scale. Change is coming much quicker in McHenry and Will Counties, and I expect it will be the same in Ogle County, where we are now actively working as well. We are not mudslinging for dollars. We never have, and never will do that. I am not, and have never been paid. On the contrary, I am a donor.

We are calling on HAHS to make your collective voice heard because another season is about to begin, and the suffering these animals are enduring is not only indefensible, but also illegal. Just last Saturday we shot a rodeo wherein at least a couple animals were run 24 times in a single day. Others were run in the high teens. American rodeo associations run an animal once in a performance. Animals with broken legs and other injuries were left to suffer with no veterinary care, which is of course illegal.

SHARK has exposed rodeo animal abuse across the country for the last three decades, but the worst of it turns out to be in our own backyards. If your organization was called the Rabbit Rescue Society, this would be somewhat different, but as the Hooved Animal Humane Society, I should think this issue would be every bit as compelling to you as us. The rodeo people are openly, wantonly breaking the law, weekend after weekend, month after month, year after year. Their victims are suffering cruelty, injuries, abandonment and death. It must end.

Your organization's name is known, and yet, it is not part of the conversation. I would certainly know if it was. If you're talking to the Boone County State's Attorney's Office, you might as well be talking to a pile of hay. The Department of Agriculture is even worse. It's been so long since they did anything productive, they no longer even have people who know what to do. That's no overstatement. We obtained their emails through FOIA, and they actually don't know what to do.

The Boone County Board needs to hear from you, in no uncertain terms. Your approved humane investigators could be checking these places out. With our drones, we could be giving them a heads up on what to look for, and what is going on. There are any number of ways we could work together, or we could work separately, but if you are making any effort, the impact has not been felt, and the lives of rodeo victims are on the line every week.

The season has started. Animals are already literally dying to entertain, and it has to stop.

Steve

Steve, your false and slanderous e-blast and social posts claimed HAHS has done nothing. These statements jeopardize our organizations work and ability to affect positive change for animal welfare. You made these claims without any knowledge or an attempt to gain knowledge about what HAHS has done. You requested proof of actions and proof was given. Are you going to publicly apologize and rescind your email and post statements?

Cynthia,

I just want to make certain I understand where you are coming from. You are saying that a couple emails from a year and a half ago, and attendance at a meeting wherein an associate was a silent observer constitutes proof of actions? That is hard to accept.

What have you done to move the needle in the last year? I would love to hear about something real, and am happy to apologize in that case. As Mr. Clifton is included in this email, I feel pretty certain that he will be happy to amplify your evidence, which would enhance your "organizations work and ability to affect positive change for animal welfare." Indulge us, and I'll make a donation to HAHS myself.

If that is not possible, there is always the option to now get involved in stopping this abuse in a real way. There is, by chance, a Boone County meeting of board members tonight, at 6 p.m., at the same place as the last meeting. Feel free to join me, and let the board know where HAHS stands. This can start to make a difference. There is a steer tailing event in Boone County on Saturday. HAHS investigators can make certain that Illinois humane laws are being followed. That will make a difference.

I've included a link to a YouTube video, so you can see how important your involvement could be. This is a great opportunity to make positive change.

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I will be very happy to be proven wrong about HAHS. In that case I will be happy to apologize. Please, Cynthia, prove me wrong. If I am not wrong, get involved now. That is the next best thing for everyone who cares about the victims of steer tailing.

Steve

SHARK is now on Venmo! Donations made simple, right from your phone! Click the Venmo button ->

and head right to our page.
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