Fighting rodeo cruelty in 2018

Your help and support will make a difference

VHS will continue fighting rodeo cruelty this year, with a significant public awareness campaign planned to address animal abuse at the Chilliwack Fair rodeo (Aug 10-12, 2018). We’ll need your help.

In 2017, the Fair’s board agreed to review two events, steer-wrestling and calf-roping, but sadly decided to retain both events, with some minor rule changes. The board ignored representations from VHS, the BC SPCA, the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies and Animal Justice, which called for the events to be dropped.

VHS will be working hard in 2018 to draw public attention to rodeo cruelty at the Fair and will be seeking the elimination of calf-roping, steer-wrestling and team-roping. As the photos on this page show, these events clearly cause animal suffering and distress. 

We plan to engage with sponsors of the Fair and the wider Chilliwack business community, urging them to press the Fair for an end to rodeo cruelty.  We will be encouraging the public to engage with sponsors and express their concerns about the Fair’s continued support for rodeo.

We’ll also continue to draw attention to animal welfare other rodeos, especially the Calgary Stampede’s rodeo and chuckwagon races.

We hope animal lovers here and across Canada will support our work against the abuse of rodeo animals.  Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on our campaigns and on actions you can take to help. You can also sign up for VHS alerts and updates.

In the meantime, donations to our fight against rodeo cruelty will help make our campaigns more effective. 

Our past campaigns helped put an end to rodeos in Victoria and Abbotsford, eliminated several cruel events at Surrey’s Cloverdale Rodeo and convinced the City of Vancouver to ban rodeos. 

With your help, we’ll gain more victories against this cruel spectacle of animal abuse.

Thank you.