“In my youth, I rode bareback broncs in the rodeo.”
I am a both an attorney and a veterinarian, who has treated both ranch and rodeo animals.
(See Who will fix Vermont cats with Peggy Larson retired?)
In my youth, I rode bareback broncs in the rodeo. After law school, I worked as a state criminal prosecutor, where I witnessed how animal abuse leads to human abuse.
My master’s degree is in pathology, so I understand injuries and damage to animal tissue.
I currently work with the police on animal abuse cases. Drawing on all of this expertise and experience, I can confidently say that rodeo is a cruel and archaic form of entertainment that should be outlawed.
Toll of thousands
Thousands of animals have been killed or injured in rodeos.
For example, according to data tracked by the Vancouver Humane Society since 1986, 105 horses have died at the Calgary Stampede alone, 75 of them in the chuckwagon races that are the Calgary Stampede’s signature event.
Six horses were killed during the 2019 chuckwagon races, and one each in 2022 and 2023.
None were killed in 2020 because the Stampede was not held that year due to COVID-19.
Counting steers as well as horses, the Calgary Stampede toll over the past 37 years may be twice as high. And the Calgary Stampede is only one of more than 600 rodeos held around the U.S. and Canada each and every year, along with at least as many Mexican-style rodeos called charreadas.
Death & injury toll hidden
Unfortunately, not all animal deaths and injuries are reported, either at the Calgary Stampede or at most rodeos.
Even where rodeos are nominally required to report all instances of animal deaths and injuries, Steve Hindi and the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness team have since 1993 collected and posted to www.sharkonline.org countless examples of egregious animal injuries and even deaths in front of thousands of spectators that were never logged in official reports by rodeo veterinarians and stock contractors.
(From SHARK video)
How rodeo animals are killed
Autopsies and examinations of animals used in rodeos done by veterinarians at slaughterhouses often reveal extensive damage.
Colorado veterinarian Robert Bay autopsied roping calves, finding muscle tears, ligament and tendon damage, damage to the thyroid and trachea, and bruises to the skin. In the practice pens, these calves are roped over and over until they can no longer be used in rodeos. Some die, some are sent to slaughter and some go into feedlots.
Meat inspectors, including Charles Haber, DVM, and Robert Fetzner, DVM, have also reported finding broken bones, blood in the abdomen, organ damage, torn muscles, and damaged tendons and ligaments in rodeo animals sent to slaughter.
(From TikTok video)
“Bucking blind”
Rodeo events where bucking horses or bulls are ridden are also cruel and dangerous.
Without the use of spurs and flank straps, horses and bulls would not buck hard enough for the rider to score points. Horses would merely “crow hop,” if they bucked at all. Bulls would try to get the rider off their backs, but would not buck as hard without the flank strap.
Horses and bulls are forced to buck beyond their normal bucking patterns. This often leads to injuries and sometimes death. Bulls have broken their legs and horses have suffered cardiac arrest and have broken their backs and necks.
Use of flank straps and spurs often causes horses to “buck blind,” where they lose track of their surroundings in a bucking frenzy, and run into the arena fencing and gates.
One of my personal friends was killed when his horse bucked blind into the arena fencing, became tangled in the fencing and fell on him, breaking his neck.
The recent San Diego Rodeo at PETCO Park featured a similar incident, in which a blinded horse collided with the arena fencing. Officially, neither the horse nor the rider suffered lasting injury, but video of the incident certainly raises questions.
(See Shoveling the bull & horse manure after the San Diego Rodeo.)
(From Instagram video)
Extreme fear & stress
Inflicting extreme fear and stress on the animals is an inherent part of rodeos, which could not exist without the fear factor. Rodeo animals are all prey animals. They want to escape, to the extent that some try to climb over the chutes and some attempt to ram their way out.
Many salivate, roll their eyes, bellow or whinny, and do anything they can to get the rider off their backs.
In mutton-busting, an event used to introduce children to rodeo, participants ride sheep as the animals attempt to get away. Some of the children who participate are as young as three years old. These children are at risk, and not just from hard falls. A three-year-old Texas boy, Derek Scott Kirby, was thrown from a sheep at a central Texas rodeo in June 2010 and ingested dirt from the arena. He became infected with E. coli and almost died. His kidneys quit functioning and he required extensive hospitalization.
A friend who is a neurologist says that it is only a matter of time before a child becomes seriously and permanently injured at one of these events.
Bad example for children
Children and teens also participate in goat tying, where they forcefully throw young goats to the ground and tie their legs together. Baby goats are fragile little animals. They are friendly and trusting. Throwing them into the arena dirt and tying them up is highly stressful to them, and most cry constantly until released.
When children see an animal abused, such as a baby calf being roped, dragged, choked and slammed to the ground by a grown man, and see him win prizes for his behavior, this tells the child that abusing animals is not only acceptable but a way to win fame and fortune.
ANIMALS 24-7 readers scarcely need to be reminded that many violent criminals abuse animals before they injure or kill humans. Among the most notorious were the serial killers Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Charles Manson, but similar examples can be found in the crime news every day––at least three, in fact, just on the day that ANIMALS 24-7 prepared this guest column for posting.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Children must not be taught that abuse is acceptable
Children must not attend rodeos and have brutality to animals modeled to them!
Based on the injuries, deaths, autopsies of roping calves, and reports from meat inspectors at slaughter plants, rodeo is animal abuse. The proof is overwhelming.
Rodeo is not a “sport,” as the animals have no choice about participating, have little or no chance to “win,” and even if they succeed in throwing a rider, the only reward is the opportunity to be ridden again and again before going to slaughter.
Rodeo is not suitable family entertainment, any more than were the horrific public punishments of the Middle Ages. By design, the animals are injured and some die.
Our children must not be taught that abuse is acceptable. It is time to make rodeo illegal.
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Thanks, Dr. Larson, for an insightful and provocative essay–I share your concerns. You’re right: rodeos should be outlawed throughout the U.S. and elsewhere, as they were back in 1934 in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales), followed by Germany and the Netherlands. As noted, rodeo is not a true “sport.” Rather, it’s mostly hype, a macho exercise in DOMINATION, having little to do with either ranching or agriculture. It needs to end, and legislation is in order: city/county/state/federal.
Relatedly, those interested should view the prize-winning rodeo documentary short, “BUCKING TRADITION” – http://www.buckingtradition.com (also available on YouTube). It features Dr. Larson and others.
A LETTER SUBMITTED TO THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE:
As a psychologist specializing in childhood trauma I feel the need to emphasize the risk of trauma children (and sensitive adults) face when witnessing injuries to animals during a rodeo as recently happened at Padres stadium.
Traumatic stressors such as the injury and death to a living being deliberately at the hands of an adult are not “fun family outings” or “kid-friendly events” especially when children notice animals are suffering or in fear for their lives (e.g., calves’ being “clotheslined” or horses bucking so hard they sever their own spines).
Rather than seeing an entertaining outing with the family many children come away traumatized but perhaps too ashamed to admit this because others were clearly enjoying themselves.
We cannot risk the development of the essential features of childhood moral development by exposing children to public events where violence and cruelty are endemic – and applauded.
Lorin Lindner, PhD, MPH
Licensed Psychologist
A disturbing truth is that most veterinarians are reluctant to really advocate for animals, especially when it comes to abuse such as rodeos. Dr. Larson is NOT one of those vets. The fake cowboys of rodeo quake when she is in their vicinity, because with her knowledge, she’ll do more damage to them than any harassed bull.
If you get the opportunity to work, or even speak with Peggy Larson, know that you are associating with a legend, and there are precious few of those in this movement.
Lest we forget the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) actually CONDONES rodeo and its inherent abuses, to their ever-lasting shame. Take your business elsewhere.
Sharing with gratitude in absolute agreement.
Culture, ANY culture, evolves as time advances, hopefully abandoning abusive, cruel, negative and senseless aspects. Rodeo, whether American or Mexican or any other, needs to go. Just like bullfighting, which is being opposed and abandoned in the culture that made it famous, this is an antiquated practice that is no longer of any value, if it ever was.
I have been a vegetarian for 50 years… I wish the world would join me… but I do not believe I am some how untitled to the right to outlaw meat ! The notion that you can outlaw things you don’t like is over reaching others rights! You can’t control other people’s rights… With every new law we lose more freedoms… outlawing rodeo is outlawing an entire segment of our society Working for better rules to protect the animals is one thing. Outlawing rodeo is quite another!
Infringing on people’s rights is a very big deal and should be considered very carefully . Because your rights could be next! Very slippery slope!
Tina Trenner’s argument, above, appears to argue first of all that animal abuse is somehow a “right,” and then to equate anything done by “an entire segment of our society” with “other people’s rights.”
In historical fact, animal abuse in some of the forms seen in rodeo was already prohibited by the Mayflower Compact of 1620, and was never recognized as a “right” anywhere in the U.S., even though legislation specifically forbidding common cruelties took several more centuries to develop and begin to be enforced.
Modern rodeo as a spectator-oriented activity originated with Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1897, by which time almost every U.S. state had humane societies and humane laws which, if enforced to the letter, would have prohibited spectator-oriented rodeo from ever getting started.
At that, rodeo did not begin to grow into a widespread industry until the unpopularity of Prohibition brought the 1928 defeat of California Proposition 21, which would have explicitly outlawed rodeo as part of a slate of amendments jointly backed by reform-oriented organizations including all California humane societies extant at that time, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the YMCA/YWCA constellation, and the major churches.
Nonsense, Tina! NOBODY has a “right” to abuse animals. Again, rodeo is condemned by nearly EVERY animal welfare organization on the planet. Rodeo has little to do with either ranching or agriculture. Working ranch hands never routinely rode bulls, or wrestled steers, or rode bareback, or barrel raced, or practiced calf roping (terrified BABIES!) as a timed event. Nor did they put flank straps on the animals, or work them over in the holding chutes with painful “hotshots,” tail-twisting, kicks and slaps….Some “sport”! Indeed, rodeo is not a “sport” at all. Rather, it’s mostly hype, a bogus, macho exercise in DOMINATION. It needs to end. A “humane” rodeo is an impossibility..
Again, rodeos were outlawed in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales) back in 1934, followed by Germany and the Netherlands. Can the U.S. be far behind?
PRIZE-WINNING RODEO DOC – http://www.buckingtradition.com (also available on YouTube).
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
I am opposed to calf roping and some of the side show events like wild
cow milking and wild horse racing… I have never been opposed to bull
riding and most of the rough stock events.. I realize the difference
between abuse and life isn’t safe… You can get hurt today because
accidents happen… After all precautions have been taken then I
don’t have an issue… You cannot take precautions with calf roping
!! So I am opposed to it ! I have never been opposed to all of rodeo..
And as far as rights are concerned… if you want to outlaw rodeo then
get it on the ballot and let the people vote on it! It would be
something that falls under states right 10th Amendment issue.
I believe strongly in our Constitutional rights… and if we live by
those laws and apply it to all animal welfare/rights then we could all
agree. Vote on rodeo and let the people speak with their vote! I would
abide by their decision but would animal advocates?
Typically animal rights advocates insult others with different
views… because if you can’t agree then insult!!! Spare me!!
Thanks for the clarification, Tina! Many share your concerns. Here’s hoping for a nation-wide movement to outlaw tie-down calf roping, substituting instead “breakaway” roping, in which the calf is neither thrown nor tied. Just imagine the public outcry if pet dogs were substituted for the roping calves, and mere terrified babies, at that.
Rhode Island outlawed tie-down calf roping years ago; others should follow suit. LEGISLATION IS IN ORDER: city/county/state/federal. Now’s the time.
Speaking of promoting rodeo to kids, I was recently looking up animal-related picture books and got a sponsored recommendation for a series of pro-rodeo children’s books that celebrate “mutton busting” and similar events.
However, the title that certainly took the cake depicted smiling cartoon kids chasing bug-eyed, scared hens around an arena as part of a “chicken chase.” The book’s description maintains that it teaches, among other values, lessons of “kindness, sharing, and helping others.” Whew!
I’m not going to go into any more details, because I don’t want the series getting any more attention than it deserves–but it’s just another example of the ways in which kids are socialized into rodeo and participating in blatant animal cruelty.
SEE LINK BELOW – a related letter to the editor (published) –
https://www.chronline.com/stories/letter-to-the-editor-mutton-busting-animal-abuse-meets-child-endangerment,324032?
VIDEO #1 – “WILD COW MILKING CONTEST” (2013), Rowell Ranch Rodeo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFwjMTwi0U0&t=5s (1 minute, 10 seconds)
Note that these are still-lactating BEEF cows (not dairy). As such, they are unused to being handled at all, much less this roughly. One of these frantic and stressed-out cows jumped the fence at the 2014 Rowell Ranch Rodeo in Castro Valley. She landed on her head and suffered a broken neck and prolapsed eyeball. She had to be euthanized, leaving an orphaned calf. Another suffered a broken leg at the 2004 Livermore Rodeo, also euthanized.
Not only is this NON-SANCTIONED event cruel and sometimes deadly, it is also blatantly sexist. As such, it should be outlawed nationwide.
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VIDEO #2 – “BUCKING TRADITION” (2019) – https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=www.buckingtradition.com&qpvt=www.buckingtradition.com&FORM=VDRE (8 minutes, 49 seconds) – OR SEE: http://www.buckingtradition.com
This prize-winning film features two veterinarians (Dr. Peggy Larson and Dr. Jim Reynolds); Minane Jameson (Board member, Hayward Area Rec & Park District); lawyer Chris Berry (Animal Legal Defense Fund); and long-time Oakland activist, Eric Mills (Action for Animals). The film discusses all the issues addressed in the proposed Alameda County ordinance: flank straps (aka Bucking straps), spurs and tie-down calf roping.
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VIDEO #3 – Humane Society of U.S. (1995) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmYFKlUnlXE – (6 minutes, 15 seconds)
Good visuals regarding what the animals endure in the rodeo arena. For the majority, the rodeo arena is merely a detour en route to the slaughterhouse. Be aware that nearly EVERY animal welfare organization in North America condemns rodeo due to its inherent cruelty. The United Kingdom (England, Scotland Wales) outlawed rodeos back in 1934, soon followed by Germany and the Netherlands. Can the U.S. be far behind?
NOTE: The PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn.) has required on-site veterinarians only since 1996, after five animals were killed at the 1995 California Rodeo/Salinas. The great majority of the estimated 5,000 U.S. rodeos don’t provide even this basic care. Nor do the estimated 800 Mexican “charreadas” held annually throughout California. Racetracks, horse shows, endurance rides all require on-site vets, why not all rodeos, pray?