Go to any rodeo, and you will hear that it has the world’s “meanest & wildest” animals, and the “greatest cowboys”. Rodeo promoters claim their animals are “born to buck.” According to the announcer at even the smallest event, it is a “world championship rodeo.” The truth isn’t nearly as impressive. Animals used in rodeos do not buck, run, jump or fall because they enjoy doing so. They are physically provoked into displays of “wild” behaviour. Cruel devices such as electric prods/shockers and spurs are used on them, and the flank or ‘buck’ strap causes irritation, making them buck so violently that they can suffer injuries.

Electric prods/shockers are easily concealed, but videos taken in Halifax (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnA_zK7gk08) and elsewhere (see for example http://www.sharkonline.org/) show the reality. Although small, the device can deliver 5,000 volts of electric shock. Cattle are particularly sensitive to electricity, and rodeo participants use that to their advantage to make bulls appear to be wild killers. Despite so-called “humane regulations”, rodeo workers often shock their victims secretly and repeatedly before releasing them, having driven them wild with torment.

The buck strap, as it name suggests, is the foundation of the bucking events. The strap is loosely fitted like a belt around the bull’s abdomen, just in front of the hind legs. When the gate is opened, a person behind the chute pulls on the buck strap as the animal departs, automatically tightening it around this extremely sensitive flank area. This is similar to an unrelenting sharp squeeze in the groin area of a human being. The animals struggle and buck violently in a futile attempt to escape. As a result, they can sustain severe bruising, pulled tendons, broken bones, and internal bleeding; some are even paralyzed from spinal cord injuries.

flankstrap

Rodeos maim, injure and kill untold numbers of animals every year. They victimize and abuse animals for profit. If these animals were “born to buck,” they wouldn’t get blasted repeatedly with thousands of volts of electricity, they wouldn’t have tormenting straps tightened around their flanks, and they wouldn’t have to be raked with spurs.

Please help us stop rodeo events at the Maritime Fall Fair. Patronize only non-animal events like festivals and sporting events, and express your opinion on bull riding competitions by sending a polite letter to the Maritime Fall Fair event manager, Randy Johnston, at:

rjohnston@tradecentrelimited.com