There are human as well as animal causes that I donate too. Cancer research, AIDS research; I have had family memebers touched by these horrible diseases. But to quote Su, "many people can help themselves, animals cannot." Remember the scene from the movie "The Matrix"? The computer agent said something to the effect of "humans are like a plague. The breed and multiple. When they have used up the resources of one area, they move on to the next." While that is harsh, I do believe some of this is true. We are so busy expanding, we are not taking in consideration the harm we are doing to the environment and to the natural creatures of the land. I see it everyday. My parents grew up as poor farmer's children. They both are in their late sixties and they tell wonderful stories about growing up. They taught us how to make dye from plants and we would make beautiful tye-dye t-shirts from these plants. Plants used for medicines. And they would talk about the animals in the forest. They would kill some of the animals for food, but the forests were so abundant that it was a part of nature. The killing of these animals for food helped prevent over-population which prevented starvation. I do beleive that is a part of the cycle of life. The sad ending to my tale is that many of the plants my parents talked about cannot be found. Many of the animals either cannot be found or their population has dwindled so that it is extremely rare to see one. A great pleasure of ours was to watch the Robins land on our yard after a rain, eager to pull the worms from the soften earth. We don't see that anymore. Those annoying rabbits and armadillos that would come into our garden and eat the vegatables are rarely seen although a garden is planted almost year round. I probably not as active in animal rights as most of you but I do care. If you choose to donate your money to animal causes rather that human causes, good for you because I know enough people are not donating.