Hunting lobby forces stores to pull support of pet shelters

There are 181 Meijer stores in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. The stores are called hypermarkets because they carry a combination of groceries and department store goods.

Unfortunately, this week they made a very bad decision to stop supporting a pet shelter because of complaints from a lobby group that claims to represent 35,000 hunters. The store is now getting the butt end of a reputation as not caring for the pets of families being foreclosed on.

Meijer had originally started a program to donate $1, up to $5,000, for every entry in an online pet photo contest. However, the plug was pulled last Friday after the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance charged the group organizing the Foreclosure Pets Fund is anti-hunting.

Shandra Martinez in Tuesday's Grand Rapids Press cites an Alliance press release from that was circulated on the internet with the contact information for Meijer chairman Hank Meijer:

"The money donated to the HSUS through this promotion, while not going directly to its anti-hunting campaign, will free up money from the organization's general fund that can be used to attack the right of sportsmen."

The pressure seemed to have worked because Meijer announced they were stopping their support. You can learn more about the cowardly response by the "heartless inhumane hypermarket" by reading the rest of the story.

If you want to make your opinions heard, you can contact Meijer CEO and Chairman Hank Meijer at 2929 Walker Ave. NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49544-9428; phone – (616) 453-6711; fax – (616) 791-2572.

This story was tipped off to me by someone who emailed me a link to this story on "Fundraising and the Fungibility Problem" over at the Acton Institute Power Blog.