Print
E-mail
Rate
Rodeo column missed the mark
Dear Editor, May I respectfully disagree with Emily Goodson ("Well-run rodeos can entertain without cruelty," Nov. 22). I've been working on rodeo reform here in California for some 25 years. Rodeo, by its very nature, is "animal abuse." Indeed, every major animal welfare organization in the U.S. concurs. Ditto on the "greased pig chase."
How "well run" a rodeo is has little correlation with animal welfare. I was present at one of the best in 1995, the California Rodeo in Salinas, when five animals were killed: three horses, a wrestling steer with a broken neck, a roping calf with a broken back. Some "sport." Most rodeo organizations, including the South's largest, the International Pro Rodeo Association, do not even provide for an on-site veterinarian to treat injured animals, and much suffering ensues. Shame on them.
Rodeo is bogus from the get-go: real working cowboys never routinely rode bulls, or rode bareback, or wrestled steers, or put bucking straps on the animals (without which most would not buck). Calf roping (disingenuously renamed "tie-down roping" by rodeo proponents) should be banned outright, of course. Imagine the public outcry if the cowboys roped a running dog by the neck, jerked him over backwards, slammed him to the ground, and tied his legs. And to mere babies, yet! For most rodeo animals, rodeo is merely a detour en route to the slaughterhouse. They (and we) deserve better.
California, at least, has a law requiring either an on-site or on-call vet at all rodeos, and a ban on the use of the electric prod. I would hope that the Peach State would provide these minimal protections. We have also banned the Mexican rodeo's ("charreada") brutal "horse tripping" and (in two counties), "steer tailing" events. Where the migrant workers go, these cruelties are likely to follow. Be advised. State legislation is in order.
Larry McMurtry, author of "Lonesome Dove," wrote in the 1994 book, "Rodeo," (Aperture Books, NYC), that cowboys are "physically competent but emotionally limited men who are in most cases sexist, chauvinist, xenophobic, quasi-fascistic, and not infrequently dull ... Cowboys, sensing - like gorillas - that their time has passed, cling ever more desperately to anachronistic styles, not willing to admit that the myth has degenerated, the traditions eroded to a point where attempting to sustain them falls somewhere between silliness and the outright ridiculous."
It's time to move on, for the animals' sake as well as society's.
Eric Mills, coordinator
Action for Animals
Oakland, Calif.
How "well run" a rodeo is has little correlation with animal welfare. I was present at one of the best in 1995, the California Rodeo in Salinas, when five animals were killed: three horses, a wrestling steer with a broken neck, a roping calf with a broken back. Some "sport." Most rodeo organizations, including the South's largest, the International Pro Rodeo Association, do not even provide for an on-site veterinarian to treat injured animals, and much suffering ensues. Shame on them.
Rodeo is bogus from the get-go: real working cowboys never routinely rode bulls, or rode bareback, or wrestled steers, or put bucking straps on the animals (without which most would not buck). Calf roping (disingenuously renamed "tie-down roping" by rodeo proponents) should be banned outright, of course. Imagine the public outcry if the cowboys roped a running dog by the neck, jerked him over backwards, slammed him to the ground, and tied his legs. And to mere babies, yet! For most rodeo animals, rodeo is merely a detour en route to the slaughterhouse. They (and we) deserve better.
California, at least, has a law requiring either an on-site or on-call vet at all rodeos, and a ban on the use of the electric prod. I would hope that the Peach State would provide these minimal protections. We have also banned the Mexican rodeo's ("charreada") brutal "horse tripping" and (in two counties), "steer tailing" events. Where the migrant workers go, these cruelties are likely to follow. Be advised. State legislation is in order.
Larry McMurtry, author of "Lonesome Dove," wrote in the 1994 book, "Rodeo," (Aperture Books, NYC), that cowboys are "physically competent but emotionally limited men who are in most cases sexist, chauvinist, xenophobic, quasi-fascistic, and not infrequently dull ... Cowboys, sensing - like gorillas - that their time has passed, cling ever more desperately to anachronistic styles, not willing to admit that the myth has degenerated, the traditions eroded to a point where attempting to sustain them falls somewhere between silliness and the outright ridiculous."
It's time to move on, for the animals' sake as well as society's.
Eric Mills, coordinator
Action for Animals
Oakland, Calif.
 |
||
| Letter writer cannot offer local views |
