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Poll: Most Canadians oppose rodeo

So why does CBC keep broadcasting it?

The VHS has long criticized CBC Sports for broadcasting the Calgary Stampede rodeo.  The CBC has refused to end its coverage despite the clear evidence that animals suffer in rodeos.  They’ve stated that the Stampede is “a longstanding Canadian tradition and is popular with millions of Canadians across this country.”

Yet public polling over the years shows that a majority of Canadians are opposed to the use of animals in rodeos.

Public polling shows that a majority of Canadians are opposed to the use of animals in rodeo. Another poll that the VHS commissioned indicates that removal of the rodeo and chuckwagon events from the Calgary Stampede program would have virtually no impact on attendance rates and would bring in new crowds.

Calf roping event at The Calgary Stampede. Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media.

During the 2015 Calgary Stampede, the VHS launched a petition calling on CBC to end its broadcast of the Stampede rodeo.  This petition was supported by 24,119 animal allies.

The VHS continues to call for an end to inhumane rodeo events and the deadly chuckwagon races at the Calgary Stampede.

Let CBC Sports know that you are among millions of Canadians opposed to rodeo – and you are in the majority. Tell them to stop putting cruelty on our television screens and calling it a sport.

Please support the Vancouver Humane Society’s continuing campaign against rodeo cruelty. Thanks to supporters, the VHS has been able to successfully advocate for a ban on rodeo in the City of Vancouver, District of North Vancouver, and Port Moody. The VHS and other organizations and advocates has also won victories against the Cloverdale Rodeo in Surrey and the Luxton Rodeo on Vancouver Island. Your donation will help the VHS continue this crucial work.

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Why does CBC Sports broadcast animal cruelty at the Calgary Stampede?

 

Ad calf
Calf being roped at Calgary Stampede. Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur

Tell CBC to stop broadcasting violence toward animals. Sign our petition!

CBC Sports has confirmed to VHS that it will once again broadcast the Calgary Stampede’s rodeo and chuckwagon races in July.  Despite severe budget cuts to its sports coverage, the CBC apparently is keeping its rodeo coverage intact.

VHS has explained to CBC Sports executives that rodeo is considered inhumane by virtually all major animal welfare agencies, including the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies and the national SPCAs of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (where it has been outlawed since 1934).

We have pointed out the obvious fact that roping animals to a sudden halt or twisting their necks until they are bent to the ground will cause fear, pain and stress.  We have asked them how this could possibly be considered entertainment.

Calf face crop Rodeo-99

We have also noted that the CBC’s television coverage of calf-roping ensures that the camera pans away from the calf as it hits the end of the rope.  That way, viewers will never see the calf violently jerked off its feet.  If what happens to the calf is not fit for the general public to see, how can the CBC condone the event by covering it?

We sent CBC Sports a link to this video showing a bull being kicked in the head at the Stampede.  We had no reply. Meanwhile, animals continue to be tormented for the sake of entertainment at the Stampede, like these ponies. The CBC doesn’t seem to want to face the truth about rodeo.

We’re asking Canadians who care about animals to let CBC Sports know how they feel about the Calgary Stampede broadcasts.  Please take a minute to sign our petition calling on Trevor Pilling, Head of Programming at CBC Sports, to stop broadcasting rodeo animal cruelty at the Calgary Stampede. 

More information on our Calgary Stampede campaign page.

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Tormenting animals to make them buck

The rodeo industry likes to say that bucking bulls and horses only work a few seconds a year and otherwise lead pampered lives.  They also like to talk about the animals being “born to buck.”

But if you watch this video you’ll see that bucking bulls are tormented at a young age to “train” them to buck.   A metal weight (called a dummy) is placed on their backs and is only released when they buck their hardest.  The animals are clearly distressed and want the weight off their backs.  What animal wouldn’t?   Can you imagine doing this to dogs?  It’s only because we are conditioned to seeing livestock treated badly that there is no public outcry against such practices.  Yet cattle and horses, as prey animals, are especially likely to suffer fear and stress from such treatment.  And they are subjected to this distress for the trivial purpose of amusing humans (and to make money for a few of them).

It’s true that bucking bulls and horses are deliberately bred to have a genetic predisposition to buck.  But even with such a predisposition, it’s still necessary to torment them with “dummies.”   And even that’s not enough to ensure they buck for the crowds – there’s also the flank strap, which is tied around the animal’s hindquarters to cause further stress.  It’s only released when the animal stops bucking.

The whole bucking stock industry is designed to make animals behave unnaturally.  Is it not perverse that this industry, including the Calgary Stampede, strives to breed horses that no one can ride?  It’s the exact opposite of what real cowboys have historically sought to achieve.   That’s because rodeo has little to do with the genuine traditions of real ranching.  It is a circus and, like all circuses, it exists to exploit animals for the sake of entertainment.

And what happens to the animals that are not good enough for this circus? As we now know, there’s a good chance they’ll end up in the slaughterhouse.

More information on the Calgary Stampede.

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Calgary Stampede sends young horses to slaughter

Bucking horses are a major part of rodeo ‘entertainment’

An article in an Alberta magazine has revealed that the Calgary Stampede sends young, healthy horses to slaughter if they can’t make the grade as bucking horses for the Stampede rodeo. (CTV News is running a report on the revelations.)

The current issue of Alberta Views carries a story by journalist Curtis Gillespie about animal care at the Stampede.  In it, Gillespie asks staff at the Calgary Stampede ranch (which breeds and raises bucking horses for the rodeo) about the fate of bucking horses not good enough to perform at the Stampede. Here is a passage from the article:

I asked what happens to those horses that simply aren’t suited to bucking, that aren’t naturals? “We usually just keep ’em around,” Marrington said. “A lot of mares go into the breeding program, even if they can’t buck, because we know they’re genetically good. We do cull, no question about that. But the fact is, you can get some young horses, for whatever reason, that fight the chute, or are just bad, and they could hurt cowboys with no ability, and they’ll just run over you. And they’re disposed of, and that’s all I’m going to tell you. They’re out of the system, out of the inventory. It’s inventory in, inventory out.”

The next day, I asked ranch manager Raymond Goodman how many times, on average, a young horse is dummied before a decision is made to remove it from the bucking program.

“Usually three or four times,” he said.

“And if they’re mares, they go back into the breeding program?”

He nodded.

“And what about geldings and studs?” I asked. “They’re culled?”

“Yup.”

“And they go where? Fort MacLeod?”

“Yup, Fort MacLeod.”

Fort McLeod is the site of a slaughterhouse run by Bouvry Exports Ltd., where many horses are sent for slaughter.  The plant was the subject of  an investigation by the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition in 2010, which found evidence that horses were being killed inhumanely.  The CHDC revealed video footage showing horses at the slaughterhouse being shot and then hoisted away by their legs while still fully conscious.

Please let the Stampede’s chief executive, Vern Kimball, know what you think about this.

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Horses die for our entertainment

News that the HBO series ‘Luck’ has been cancelled after three horses died during production, has put the spotlight on the horse racing industry just as a number of horses have been killed in high profile races.

The deaths of five horses in two days at the U.K.’s famous Cheltenham Festival has outraged animal welfare advocates, including the RSPCA.  Meanwhile, it has been reported that 16 horses have died in the last 14 weeks at New York’s Aqueduct Horse Track, prompting the State’s Governor to call for an independent inquiry.

Of course, race horse deaths are nothing new.  Last year, it emerged that 20 horses had died within as many months at the Hastings Park Racecourse in Vancouver.

And horses die regularly in other forms of equine entertainment, such as rodeos.  More than 50 horses have died at the Calgary Stampede since 1986,. This includes two at last year’s Stampede, as reported by the Calgary Herald ‘s pathetically upbeat headline: ‘Visitor numbers up, horse deaths down as Calgary Stampede ends’ (Six died the year before.)

Supporters of these spectacles should face up to the fact that animals are dying so that they may be entertained.