RODEO - A Legalized Abuse of Animals

Rodeo, has been promoted as "great family fun", is in truth nothing more than a blatant exhibition of animal abuse which has no more place in a civilized society than cock-fighting or bear-baiting. It is impossible to have a "humane" rodeo, or one which does not pose serious risk of injury or death to animals. Far from being exercises of human skill and courage over wild beasts as their supporters would have us believe, they are manipulative displays of human domination over frightened and hurting animals.
Around 4000 horses and bulls are used in the over 600 rodeos held around Australia each year, in addition to an unknown number of calves and steers. Rodeos in most states are self regulated, meaning that only a small fraction of animal injuries and deaths ever become public knowledge.

While a horse may buck for fun, rodeo horses buck uncontrollably from torment. The secret is the flank strap, which is tightened painfully around the horse's sensitive flank area as the chute gate is opened. The horse bucks in a futile attempt to escape the discomfort. Rodeo horses do not stop bucking when they have thrown their rider, but only once the irritating strap is loosened. Bucking events cannot be held without this strap. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, banned the flank strap over a decade ago and has not held a rodeo since. The strap can cause bloody and painful open wounds which investigators have found at virtually every rodeo. In addition, bucking horses often suffer back and leg injuries from repeated pounding on hard ground.

Rodeo organisers like to play on the fallacy that bulls are tough skinned and impervious to pain. The absurdity of this is obvious when it is remembered that the skin of cattle is sensitive enough to detect a fly alighting. Bucking bulls not only suffer the same flank strap, spur, muscle and skeletal injuries as horses, but they also typically receive the worst abuse from electric shocking. Cattle are particularly sensitive to electricity, and abusers use this to their advantage to make normally docile animals appear wild and dangerous. A Chicago rodeo organiser is quoted as saying, "Bulls today have been bred to be docile. You can't make an animal buck if you don't do something to it".
Rodeo promoters argue that they must treat their animals well to keep them healthy and usable. A statement from a former steer roper comes closer to the truth: "I keep 30 head of cattle for practice. You can cripple 3 or 4 in an afternoon".
Dr C G Haber, a vet who also worked as a meat inspector, saw many discarded rodeo animals. He described them as so extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached to the flesh were the head, neck, legs and belly. He saw animals with 6-8 broken ribs, sometimes puncturing the lungs, and as much as 2-3 gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin.


CALF ROPING

Most people with an ounce of compassion can see that there's something wrong with jerking a 3-4 month old baby animal to a halt with a rope around its neck, slamming it to the ground and tying its legs so that it can't move. The frightened calves are usually travelling at high speed when lassoed and hit the end of rope with great force. They may become airborne before crashing to the ground, with a high probability of breaking their back, neck or legs in the process. Tearing of ligaments, disc rupture, damage to the thymus gland, trachea and subcutaneous tissue, and haemorrhaging is also common. If they can still breathe, calves will cry pitifully as would be expected of any terrified baby.



Incredibly, rodeo people have no problem with committing an act of cruelty and cowardice against a baby cow during calf roping. A roping calf is only three to four months old. After that, they become too heavy for the "macho" cowboys to handle.
Calf-roping on the range bears no resemblance to calf roping at the rodeo. In the rodeo, it is a timed event, and indefensible abuse to the calf is the price paid for a competitive time. On the range, calves are roped carefully, and slowly brought to a halt.
On the range, calves are roped for care, or to protect them from danger. In rodeos, calves are endangered for amusement. This "sport" violently and specifically preys upon baby animals, and then calls itself "family entertainment!"


STEER WRESTLING AND ROPING














Steer wrestling requires the rider to throw the steer by jumping onto him from a galloping horse and twisting his neck until he falls to the ground. Not unexpectedly, this can cause muscle, tendon and spinal injuries and well as considerable pain. In the related event of steer roping, the rider lassoes the horns of a galloping steer, then circles him on horseback to pull the rope tight around his legs until he crashes to the ground.


BABY GOAT TYING


Goat tying is an event created to apparently mimic calf-roping, but intended for female contestants. At the National High School Finals Rodeo, terrified baby goats are chased down by contestants on horseback as an appalling excuse for "sport" and "family entertainment".
A goat that is already tethered to a rope is approached by a girl on a galloping horse. Terror-stricken, the goat frantically tries to escape the oncoming horse and abuser. The roper jumps off the horse, slams the tethered goat down and ties its legs. It's a little like tackling someone who is already in handcuffs.


WHAT CAN YOU DO

- Do not attend rodeos or any other events where animals are abused for human entertainment, and tell your family and friends why.
- Encourage as many people as you can to not attend rodeos otherwise it is supporting animal cruelty.
- Boycott rodeos from performing in your area
- Contact your local congressman and urge him/her to ban rodeos from performing within your state area. Many states have already banned rodeos because it is a form of animal cruelty on display as "entertainment."
- Get yourself informed - the following links will provide you with more insights on the real face of "Rodeo Cruel Entertainment":

- SHARK - Animal Cruelty Investigations & Campaigns
- SHARK - Videos
- SHARK - Videos on You Tube
- FAACE - Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe
- Rodeo: Cruelty for a Buck
- Charreada: Bone-Breaking Cruelty
- Buck the Rodeo
- Rodeos @ www.animal-lib.org.au
- Rodeo Pictures


Watching frightened and defenseless animals being tortured and humiliated is not "entertainment." There is nothing to be proud of when it comes to rodeos. These animals are terrified and people actually laugh at their pain.
What kind of humanity is that? Mocking and laughing at another living creature's pain, suffering and humiliation? That is not "family fun" or "entertainment."
That is animal cruelty.

How Animals End up in Labs

Companion Animals

Many dogs and cats used in laboratory experiments come from companies that breed animals for research purposes. Others were once trusting companions who simply got lost or stolen from their families.

Pound Seizure

Animal shelters in certain states are required to turn over homeless dogs to government-run facilities for medical experiments if they are not claimed by former or new guardians within five days of arriving at the shelter. This is commonly known as pound seizure .

Three USA states require pound seizure of government-run facilities: Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah. Thirteen states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia, forbid pound seizure. Most other states have no law and leave it up to county or town governments to decide.

Class A Dealers

Anyone selling animals to laboratories or selling more than 24 dogs or cats per year at the wholesale level must be licensed. Class A dealers maintain their own breeding colonies, such as puppy mills .

According to the States News Service, Class A dealers or breeders who choose to release animals for research; people who donate their companion animals to research; and private and federal facilities that breed animals are capable of supplying far more cats and dogs than are required by current laboratory demand.


Class B Dealers

Anyone 18 or older who is willing to pay a fee can obtain a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Class B dealer license. In states that allow pound seizure, Class B dealers may buy animals from pounds and animal shelters. "Bunchers" are also a vital source of animals in the dealers' network. Using sedatives hidden in meat, females in heat, and nets, they lure or trap dogs and cats. Some thieves pose as animal control officers and comb neighborhoods in vans, "confiscating" animals without tags. Many bunchers also purchase litters from unsuspecting people who allow their animal companions to breed and obtain animals from "Free to a Good Home" advertisements.

C.C. Baird, the largest and most notorious Class B animal dealer in the United States, purchased animals from people using false addresses and non-existent driver's license numbers. In March 2004, after years of efforts by animal protection organizations, the USDA filed a 108-page complaint listing hundreds of violations against C.C. Baird, his wife, Patsy, and their daughters, Jeanette and Patricia.

States News Service reports that there are about 50 "random source" animal dealers across the United States. They often keep hundreds of animals in squalid conditions and give them little food and water. These animals often are eventually sold to research laboratories for $200 to $500 each.


Primates

Chimpanzees and other primates used in U.S. laboratories are primarily captive-bred. Unwanted chimpanzees from zoos and circuses are sometimes sold to laboratories. Poachers also shoot chimpanzee mothers and take their infants for research. Many of the captured baby chimpanzees die before they reach the laboratory.

The Oregon National Primate Research Center brags that it maintains colonies of rhesus monkeys, snow monkeys, vervets, and baboons who were taken from the wild and/or brought to the center from other facilities.


From the jungle or savannah to the laboratory, every moment of the captured primate's experience is characterized by sickness, despair, fear, loneliness, and terror. Many primates die during quarantine and transport into the United States, with the mortality rate reaching a high of 20 percent at one point, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Those who survive the miserable journeys from their homes are funneled into gruesome, painful, repetitive, and often pointless experiments from which few emerge alive.


This is a video of primates trapped from Mauritius, sent to a vivisection breeder and then to the hell of an animal lab.


Mauritius and their trade in Monkeys

The island of Mauritius is one of the worlds largest exporters of primates to animal testing labs. Whilst many thousands of tourists holiday on Mauritius they are unaware that there are 3 monkey farms on the island where many thousands on monkeys await there fate. Many of these primates are wild caught and literally dragged from the jungle. If you are reading this and you are against animal cruelty then you should boycott the island of mauritius until they close down the cruel and disgusting moneky farms.

Thomas Cook sell 5% of all holidays on Mauritius. They know full well what goes on at the monkey farms on Mauritius yet refuse point blank to do the ethical thing and remove Mauritius from their brochures. They know full well that this would put the Mauritian government under immense pressure to close the monkey farms.

Please get more information HERE


Rodents and Other Animals

Birds, frogs, pigs, sheep, cattle, and many naturally free-roaming animals (e.g., prairie dogs and owls) are also common victims of experimentation. So are mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, and rabbits.


Most small animals used in laboratory experiments are bred by callous companies who view animals as little more than walking pin cushions and test tubes with whiskers. For example, Charles River Laboratories is one of the world's largest suppliers of rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, and other animals for laboratory experiments. The Jackson Laboratory supplies approximately 2 million specially bred JAX Mice to major universities, medical schools, and research laboratories in the world every year.


Life in a Laboratory


Imagine living locked inside a closet without control over any aspect of your life. You can't choose when and what you eat, how you will spend your time, whether or not you will have a partner and children, and if you do, who that partner will be. You can't even decide when the lights go on and off. Think about spending your entire life like this, even though you have committed no crime.

This is life in a laboratory for animals. It is deprivation, isolation, and misery.


Now consider all the specialized needs of the species imprisoned for experimentation. Chimpanzees, in their natural homes, are never separated from their families and troops. They spend hours together every day, grooming each other and making soft nests for sleeping each night. They are loving and protective parents, and baby chimps will live close to their mothers for many years. But in a laboratory, chimpanzees are caged alone. There are no families, no companions, no grooming, no nests. There are only cold, hard steel bars and loneliness that goes on for so many years that most chimpanzees sink into depression, eventually losing their minds.

Rats and mice are denied a place to dig and hide. Dogs and cats are deprived of exercise, affection, and the homes that they long for with families to care for them. Rabbits have no room to leap. Pigs cannot root in the ground or build their nests. Even when the cages are clean, and this is not always the case, the animals are not allowed to engage in any normal behavior.


On top of the deprivation, there are the experiments. Animals are infected with diseases that they would never normally contract, tiny mice grow tumors as large as their own bodies, kittens are purposely blinded, rats are made to suffer seizures. Experimenters force-feed chemicals to animals, conduct repeated surgeries on them, implant wires in their brains, crush their spines, and much more. Think of what it would be like to endure this and then be dumped back into a cage, usually without any painkillers. Video footage from inside laboratories shows that animals cower in fear every time someone walks by their cages. They don't know if they will be dragged from their prison cells for an injection, blood withdrawal, a painful procedure or surgery, or death. Often animals see other animals killed right in front of them.


In the following links you can find more information about animal testings (vivisection) and what you can do to stop those atrocities:

Animal Voice Links Archive - Vivisection

Animal Voice (related articles)