A SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation) Board member, zoologist Dr Michael Morris, who is one of the leaders of the anti-foie gras campaign directed at the Wellington French restaurant Le Canard, is reported today by The Dominion Post (p. A21) as saying that his five fellow-campaigners, like himself, are “professionals with sensible jobs”. The group has vowed to carry on its protests outside Le Canard restaurant until its foie gras dish is taken off the menu.

SAFE is a registered charity with the Charities Commission headed by Mr Trevor Garrett. Its finanancial accounts (available on line on the Commission’s website www.charities.govt.nz), reveal that in the financial year ended 31 March 2011, it employed nine full-time charity workers and 5 part-timers; all presumably in sensible professional charity jobs funded from the charitable donations SAFE received from charitable New Zealanders, many holding down sensible professionsal jobs.

SAFE records a total annual salary and wages bill of $589,430, for the financial year ended 31 March 2011. This pay-out constituted 61% of the charity’s annual income of $917,315 – the latter derived no doubt from donations given by many New Zealanders employed in sensible professional jobs. [Read more…]