Now that the Olympic Command Performance Rodeo is over, we should look at the facts to see whether the media’s and protesters’ ballyhoo had meat or just baloney.
You remember the game plan of the animal-rights activists. Billboards. Meetings with Rocky Anderson and Mitt Romney. A truck following the Olympic torch. Opinion columns. Letters from Olympians.
All this effort was an attempt to prevent holding the rodeo, which would prevent cruelty to animals, which would prevent “shaming the Games,” as the billboard stated.
The activists’ efforts failed. Not only did the rodeo run, but except for the extra glitz of lasers and Olympic excitement, it ran the same as any other rodeo in this country. Athletes competed in all seven events, from calf roping to bull riding, and the animals were treated no differently than usual.
That means this rodeo injured animals, right? Wrong.
Eric Ward, an animal-rights activist at the U wrote in “Rodeo Will Extinguish Spirit of the Games” (Daily Utah Chronicle, Jan. 7) that an animal is injured “at almost every rodeo.” Someone is giving him wrong information.
Doug Corey, one of the five veterinarians at the Olympic rodeo who checked the animals before and after each performance said no animals were injured. And a survey conducted in 2000 by the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association (PRCA) found just 38 injuries (an injury was defined as anything that would keep an animal out of a competition) from 71,743 animal exposures in the arena.
Corey, an independent veterinarian who, for 20 years, has helped develop guidelines concerning rodeo animals’ welfare, said he would not be associated with rodeo if he thought it were harmful to animals because, he said, “it’s not worth my reputation.”
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have a veterinarian of their own, of course. Their Web site quotes a Dr. C. G. Haber as saying, “Bullfights are merciful compared to rodeos,” even though it doesn’t show Haber as having any direct involvement in rodeos.
Sound a little extreme? Well, PETA has an extreme mission statement, which says, “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment.” As extremists they are not part of the Big Mac-eating, Doc Martin-wearing crowd and often have to stretch the truth to back up their zeal. Let’s examine a few of their other claims.
On the Web site, www.bucktherodeo.com, PETA says bucking straps are “painful” and are “cinched tightly around the animals’ genitals or abdomen.” They also claim handlers incite the horses and bulls with electric and wooden prods prior to opening the chute gates.
I’ve worked behind the chutes at a lot of rodeos. I know PETA’s claims are false. Stock contractors do use bucking straps and electric and wooden prods, but not in a way that harms the animals.
The straps are tightened around a horse’s flank as it bolts into the arena from the chute. Horses’ flanks are like little kids’ armpits in that they are ticklish. The tightened strap on that area does help the horses buck harder. But it isn’t guaranteed. Just as there are kids who aren’t ticklish, I’ve seen many horses that won’t buck despite the strap. And I’ve seen many horses that buck without a strap.
The strap does not come in contact with the horses’ genitals. (Loosely tied ropes are placed around bulls’ flanks and also stay clear of the genitals.) The surface area of the strap that contacts the horses’ flanks and belly is sheepskin and does no more harm to them than a saddle’s cinch strap does to the ribs of a saddle horse.
Cattle prods are used when sorting the stock, not for “torment(ing) in the chutes” as PETA claims. The contractor has to walk into a pen of bulls or horses and get one to run by him while keeping the rest from stampeding. The prods allow the contractors to single out individual animals without getting close enough to be trampled or hooked. Contractors use the prods no differently than veterinarians and ranchers singling out animals. Electric prods, like electric fences, shock animals but do not harm them.
As for timed events, PETA says, “Calves are only used in one rodeo before they are returned to the ranch or destroyed because of injuries.” This is also false.
Although calves are not nearly as expensive as bucking stock (top bucking bulls sell for as much as $40,000 each), they are not expendable. PRCA regulations require calves to weigh 220-280 pounds. Calves fit that weight range for three to six months of their lives. During that time they are used multiple times in rodeos, but not more than once a day.
Ward said calf roping is pure entertainment, and that a real “cow hand caught roping calves as in rodeos would be fired on the spot.” He has obviously never worked on a ranch or he would know that claim is false.
Two other forms of rodeo injury PETA and the protestors pointed out were the twisting of calves’ tails and the use of spurs on bucking stock. They are correct, but not about the injury part.
During the calf-roping event, somebody will be behind the calf in the chute and twist its tail to entice it to leave the chute when the gates are opened. Just as the bucking straps that help horses buck, the tail twisting causes discomfort, but no injury.
On the bucking events, the athletes do spur the animals. But the spurs are dull. They help the athletes stay on the animals. They don’t cut the animals’ skins (which are five to seven times thicker than human skin) or leave marks.
So those are the facts.
Rodeo animals are treated just as well, and usually better, than their non-rodeo counterparts. PETA and animal-rights activists don’t approve of non-rodeo use of the same animals either, but because the rodeo provided higher visibility for their protests, they painted rodeos as crueler than regular animal use.
Cindy Schonholtz, the PRCA’s animal welfare representative, said she works with many animal-welfare (as opposed to animal-rights) organizations such as state animal control units and humane societies. She said once she shows them the regulations and care they provide for the rodeo animals, “they are very supportive of what we do.”
So did the rodeo shame the Games? It didn’t shame the 1988 Olympic games in Calgary and it didn’t shame them in 2002. I don’t think Orrin Hatch or Mike Leavitt or Mitt Romney thought so, or they wouldn’t have been in attendance.
On the final night of the rodeo when the announcer paid tribute to the rodeo animals as “unsung heroes” who, despite what protesters say, “eat before we do and rest before we do,” the sold-out crowd erupted in loud applause.
The shame was the protesters using half-truths and lies to get attention, and the media giving them that much coverage, especially without checking the accuracy of the protesters’ claims.
Even the day after the final performance, despite two Utah cowboys winning gold medals in the rodeo, the Deseret News ran no articles on the rodeo itself, but ran three articles on the activists who had unsuccessfully tried to stop it.
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