Rodeos: Torturing Animals for "Sport"

Above: "Tie Down" calf roping, an event which will be featured at the Great Markham Rodeo

Breaking their bones.

**AS OF MAY 16, 2006, VANCOUVER HAS BANNED RODEOS! They are the first city in Canada to do so. The Vancouver Humane Society hopes to send the message to other Canadian cities that the rodeo is "no longer acceptable in modern society" and that Vancouver "will no longer tolerate the use of animals as entertainment".**

Rodeos are promoted as rough and tough exercises of human skill and courage in conquering the fierce, untamed beasts of the Wild West. In reality, rodeos are nothing more than manipulative displays of human domination over animals, thinly disguised as entertainment. What began in the 1800s as a skill contest among cowboys has become a show motivated by greed and big profits.

Standard rodeo events include calf roping, steer wrestling, bareback horse and bull riding, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, steer roping, and barrel racing. The animals used in rodeos are captive and unwilling performers. Most are relatively tame but understandably distrustful of human beings because of the harsh treatment that they have received. Many of these animals are not aggressive by nature; they are physically provoked into displaying "wild" behavior to make the cowboys look "brave". Is there anything brave about slamming calves to the ground?

Electric prods, spurs, and bucking straps are used to irritate and enrage animals used in rodeos. The flank or "bucking" strap or rope used to make horses and bulls buck is tightly cinched around their abdomens and genitals, which causes the animals to "buck vigorously to try to rid themselves of the torment," This is what the rodeo promoters want the animals to do in order to put on a good show for the crowds. The flank strap, when paired with spurring, causes the animals to buck even more violently, often resulting in serious injuries. Former animal control officers have found burrs and other irritants placed under the flank strap. In addition, the flank strap can cause open wounds and burns from when the hair is rubbed off and the skin is chafed raw.

Cows and horses are often prodded with an electrical "hotshot" while in the chute to rile them, causing intense pain to the animals. Peggy Larson, D.V.M., a veterinarian who in her youth was a bareback bronc rider said, "Bovines are more susceptible to electrical current than other animals. Perhaps because they have a huge ‘electrolyte’ vat, the rumen [one of their stomachs]."

The late Dr. C.G. Haber, a veterinarian who spent 30 years as a federal meat inspector, worked in slaughterhouses and saw many animals discarded from rodeos and sold for slaughter. He described the animals as being so extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached to the flesh were the head, neck, legs, and belly. He described seeing animals "with 6-8 ribs broken from the spine, and at times puncturing the lungs." Haber saw animals with "as much as 2-3 gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin." These injuries are a result of animals’ being thrown in calf-roping events or being jumped on from atop horses during steer wrestling.

Rodeo promoters argue that they must treat their animals well in order to keep them healthy and usable. But this assertion is belied by a statement that Dr. T.K. Hardy, a Texas veterinarian and sometime steer-roper, made to Newsweek: "I keep 30 head of cattle around for practice, at $200 a head. You can cripple 3 or 4 in an afternoon … it gets to be a pretty expensive hobby." Unfortunately, there is a steady supply of newly discarded animals available to rodeo producers when other animals have been worn out or fatally injured.

Although rodeo cowboys voluntarily risk injury by participating in events, the animals they use have no such choice. Because speed is a factor in many rodeo events, the risk of accidents is high.

A terrified, screaming young horse burst from the chutes at the Can-Am Rodeo and, within five seconds, slammed into a fence and broke her neck. Bystanders knew that she was dead when they heard her neck crack, yet the announcer told the crowd that everything would "be all right" because a vet would see her. Sadly, incidents such as this are not uncommon at rodeos. For example, by the end of the 2001, nine-day Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada, six animals were dead, including a horse who died of a heart attack-induced aneurism and another who suffered a broken leg and had to be euthanized. At the same event in 2002, seven animals were dead including five horses in the Chuckwagon competition and injuries included broken legs, a broken shoulder, and a broken back. A calf died in the calf roping event. In 2005, nine horses died at the Calgary Stampede.

At the "prestigious" National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, a bull fell and fractured his spine seconds after leaving the chute. The year before, a bucking horse was euthanized after he flipped over and broke his back.

During the National Western Stock Show, a horse crashed into a wall and broke his neck, while still another horse broke his back after being forced to buck. Dr. Cordell Leif told the Denver Post, "Bucking horses often develop back problems from the repeated poundings they take from the cowboys. There’s also a real leg injury where a tendon breaks down. Horses don’t normally jump up and down."

In May of 2004, a steer being used in the Cloverdale Rodeo in British Columbia was slammed into the ground so hard that his neck was broken. While horrified spectators watched, the twitching animal was nearly run over by the removal truck before being hoisted onto a trailer and trucked away.

Calves roped while running routinely have their necks snapped back by the lasso, often resulting in neck injuries. Even Bud Kerby, owner and operator of Bar T Rodeos Inc., agrees that calf roping is inhumane. He told the St. George Spectrum that he "wouldn’t mind seeing calf roping phased out." At the Connecticut Make-A-Wish Rodeo, one steer’s neck was forcefully twisted until it broke. Sometimes animals break loose from their pens and escape, only to be shot by police untrained in capturing livestock.

Rodeo association rules are not effective in preventing injuries and are not strictly enforced, nor are penalties severe enough to deter abusive treatment. For example, "[I]f a member abuses an animal by any unnecessary, non-competitive or competitive action, he may be disqualified for the remainder of the rodeo and fined $250 for the first offense, with that fine progressively doubling with each offense thereafter." These are small fines in comparison to the large purses that are at stake. Rules allow the animals to be confined or transported in vehicles for up to 24 hours without being properly fed, watered, or unloaded.

THE TORONTO HUMANE SOCIETY AND THE OSPCA ARE BOTH OPPOSED TO RODEOS. DO NOT BELIEVE RODEO PROMOTERS WHEN THEY TELL YOU THEY HAVE OSPCA SUPPORT!

The OSPCA's Offical Position Statement on rodeos:
"R.2.
The Ontario SPCA strongly recommends the banning of the use of animals in
rodeos for any purpose which causes the animals to be placed in a stressful
condition such as "bronco riding", "calf roping or throws", "wild bull riding",
"chuckwagon races", as they cause by their nature, injury, torment, and
stress to the animals."

Under the Big Top

Circuses and other traveling animal acts go through a great deal of trouble to bring us such "entertainment" as tigers jumping through fire, elephants standing on their heads, and seals playing musical horns. However, the same circuses are desperate to hide the fact that the animals perform solely out of fear. In contrast to the glitter often associated with circuses, the life of most animals forced to perform is little more than a dismal and utterly pathetic existence.
The smaller and poorer the circus, the more limited the animals' access may be to water, food, and veterinary care. But whatever the size of a circus, the animals inevitably suffer.

Tigers and lions usually live and travel in cages which are a mere 4 feet by 6 feet by 5 feet. Early in their training, according to Henry Ringling North in his book The Circus Kings, the big cats are "chained to their pedestals, and ropes are put around their necks to choke them down. They work from fear." Bears may have their noses broken while being trained or have their paws burned to force them to stand on their hind legs.

Because of the enormous size and strength of elephants, most trainers rely on chains and fear to make them obey. Some elephants spend almost their whole lives in chains. The well-known Dumbo lived 20 years in "martingales," chains that ran from his tusks to his feet. In the wild, the life expectancy of elephants is the same as ours. In the circus, many elephants die prematurely of disease and the stress of confinement.

Circuses claim to train their animals by "positive reinforcement." If this were true, we would see trainers carrying a bag of peanuts, not a whip and a sharpened bullhook.

Here are some important points to remeber about circuses when protesting local shows, creating literature, talking to the media or talking to family or friends:

* If circuses ONLY use positive reinforcement, are they willing to support legislation to ban the use of sharp hooks, whips and electric shock on animals? (Ringling has flat out said "NO"!)

* The animal rights community would like to monitor the training of a baby elephant 24 hours a day for the first 5 years of his/her life. If the circus has nothing to hide, why won't they open their doors?

* Out of the 244 elephants traveling with circuses and "entertainment" venues, 221 were torn away from their families and homelands (documentation from industry source available). These are animals who once knew freedom and now can only dream about it.

* The circus claims its animals are treated like family. Yet it tears babies away from their mothers, keeps them in leg shackles the majority of their lives, confines them for hours and even days in box cars and travel trailers, and forces them to perform unnatural and sometimes painful tricks, all for the circus' financial gain. Hardly how decent people would treat their family.

* There is no way to humanely train and travel with a 12,000 pound exotic animal like an elephant.

* Circus animals live their entire lives in tiny cages with barely enough room to stand up or lie down.

* Circus animals are forced to perform unnatural tricks under the constant threat of punishment.
* Circuses have a financial interest in making the public believe the animals are well cared for. Of course they wouldn't admit that the animals are beaten and abused. We have no financial interest to protect; our only interest is the protection of animals.

* When not in the ring, elephants are chained by two feet unable to take even one step forward or back. They constantly sway back and forth to ease their psychological stress and frustration. (NOTE: before using this sound bite find out if the circus you are protesting chains their elephants. If unsure, call PETA).

* We have undercover video that shows how circus animals are trained. The video shows tigers being dragged by the neck in chains and beaten with metal pipes and baseball bats.

* Wild animals belong in the wild, not in the circus.

* If children could see behind the scenes of the big top and how sad the animals' lives are, they would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the circus.

For more information about the cruelties of the circus industry contact your local animal protection groups and be sure to check out http://www.circuses.com/

PETA has a variety of useful supplies available including: Ele-Friend stickers, coloring books, CANCELLED stickers, anti-circus posters and leaflets, Circus Cruelty Checklists, the videos "Cheap Tricks," and "Training and Tragedy" and Animal Display Ban Packs.