"The Problem with Rodeo"

By Eric Mills

Earth Island Journal, Autumn 2002 Vol. 17 Issue 3 page 48

 

Rodeo season is upon us, and one can almost smell the testosterone in the air. Touted by its fans as "America's Number One Sport," others see rodeo as institutionalized animal abuse. Both may be right.

The Humane Society of the US and the American Humane Association have a joint policy condemning all rodeos due to their inherent cruelty, and the negative message that such a violent activity sends, especially to children.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), the nation's largest, sponsors some 700 rodeos annually in the US, 100 in California. The PRCA has some good humane guidelines, but they are not as strictly enforced as needed. Only recently has the PRCA adopted a rule requiring an on-site veterinarian at all its events to care for injured animals. And why not? All rodeos require on-site ambulances and paramedics to care for injured cowboys/girls. It's only fair.

To give rodeo its due, I know of no other sport in which the contestants so unselfishly help one another. Cowboys lend the competition their horses, their saddles, and tell each other how a particular horse or bull bucks and turns, even though it might cost them the prize money Kudos for that.

But the treatment of the animals is another story. Much of present-day rodeo is bogus from the get-go. Real cowboys never routinely rode bulls, or rode bareback, or wrestled steers, or put bucking straps on the animals (without which most would not buck), or tried to rope, throw, and tie a calf (a baby) in eight seconds flat.

The PRCAs claims notwithstanding, animal injuries are commonplace. Their own "2000 PRCA Injury Survey" documents 38 injuries at 57 PRCA rodeos that year. Five animals were killed at the California Rodeo/Salinas in 1995. Last year at a July 4 rodeo in Taylorsville, California three horses were badly gored by bulls, while another bull ripped open his belly jumping a fence, endangering the audience at the same time. This is but the tip of the rodeo iceberg.

Yet rodeo continues to grow in popularity, thanks in part to increasing TV coverage and corporate sponsorship (Dodge trucks, Marlboro cigarettes, Coors beer, Coca-Cola, etc.) Coke's "Animal Welfare Policy" states that, "The Coca-Cola Company does not endorse or condone any practice of cruelty to animals, and the Company does not sponsor or promote events where there is a risk of physical harm to animals." Hypocritically, the company allows its local bottlers to sponsor rodeos across the country, which many do. Coke needs to hear from us.

ESPN's TV coverage of rodeo is disingenuous at best. The TV camera never shows the roping calves being jerked down - the camera always pans back to horse and rider, giving the false impression that the animals never get hurt. At last year's National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas (a PRCA event) a horse was killed in the arena, unknown to the TV audience thanks to the miracle of "the seven-second delay" This is dishonest reporting.

There is growing public concern about rodeos generally. The State of Rhode Island banned tie-down calf roping in 1989, due to its cruelty Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has banned painful rodeo tack such as spurs, bucking straps and electric prods, as has Leesburg, Virginia. Only last year Pasadena, California banned all circuses and rodeos.

And earlier this year, the US Olympic Committee received more than 2,000 letters decrying the inclusion of an ill-advised "Olympic Rodeo" at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

At press time, two state rodeo bills are wending their way through the California State Legislature. SB 1851, by Senator Don Perata, would require an on-site veterinarian at most rodeos. (A no-brainer, right? Yet, amazingly, the California Veterinary Medical Association was opposed.) The other, SB 1306, by Senator Liz Figueroa, would ban the brutal practice of "steer tailing," a standard event at "charreadas," the Mexican-style rodeos common throughout California and the Southwest. In steer-tailing, a person on horseback grabs and then bends a steer's tail in half, in an attempt to make the animal come crashing to the ground. In many cases the animal's tail is broken or even tom off.

Rodeo is only a detour en route to the slaughterhouse for most of these animals. They (and we) deserve better.