Rodeos: a call to ban this training in violence

MORE than four years ago, Civis commented on rodeos, and speculated about the links between their encouragement and normalisation of violence to animals as family entertainment, and the epidemic of violence in New Zealand society, given the incontrovertible evidence that cruelty to animals is a significant predictor of violence to humans.

We don’t need rodeos here. They’re a foreign import from the United States, unrelated to the everyday work of farmers in this country. Indeed, the cruelty intrinsic to rodeos would be unproductive, and wouldn’t be tolerated, in responsible farming.

Civis has never attended a rodeo, and has no intention of doing so. One sees more than enough violence on the TV news, and, for that matter, more than enough of rodeos in the pages of daily newspapers. Why, Civis wonders, do newspapers continue to normalise torture of animals by publishing pictures of that cruelty? It may reduce readership — one of Civis’ family won’t open any section of the paper that includes pictures of rodeos.

Lynn Charleton, of AntiRodeo Action, attended the Maungatapere MidNorthern Rodeo, near Whangarei, on January 14 and 15 this year, and filmed some of the action. Extracts from that recording can be viewed on RNZ National’s website, and provide sobering evidence about the brutal treatment of animals that seems to be essential to the spectacle of rodeos.

A terrified calf is shown being roped while running at high speed, and as it violently somersaults, its head is jerked so far back that it looks as if its neck will break. A bull in a pen is wrestled to the ground by a number of men, and eventually escapes through the gate by crawling out on its knees. A horse, also in the pen, is attacked by six men in what Ms Charleton describes as a ‘‘gang assault’’, until, eventually it cowers on the ground, too scared to move. And another horse, in the same pen, becomes so agitated that it rears up high enough that its front legs are caught over the wall of the pen.

A man is shown using an electric prodder on a calf, in direct contravention of the socalled Rodeos Code of Welfare. NZ Rodeo Cowboys Association president Marty Deans denies that such use occurred, maintaining that, while the video shows a man moving the prodder towards the calf, it was never used. Come on! In the video the prodder appears to touch the calf, and the calf jerks. But it didn’t touch? And, if use of a prodder on calves is forbidden, why was the man concerned holding one, let alone poking it towards the calf?

The obviously disregarded Rodeos Code of Welfare is one thing. The law is another. The Animal Welfare Act requires animals to be ‘‘physically handled in a manner which minimises the likelihood of unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress’’. It is clear from Ms Charleton’s video that the animals shown were subjected to almost unbearable distress, and considerable pain, just for entertainment. That’s illegal.

RNZ National’s Checkpoint asked sponsors of the MidNorthern Rodeo whether they thought rodeos fitted within their values. Real estate firm LJ Hooker New Zealand general manager Keith Niederer was initially dismissive: the company had ‘‘more important things to worry about’’. The next day, wiser heads prevailed, and LJ Hooker and competitor Harcourts said they had instructed their franchisees not to sponsor rodeos. Some other rodeo sponsors have withdrawn: it’s to be hoped that all others follow suit.

The Ministry for Primary Industries, and the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, to their shame, rejected the 60,000signature petition presented last year which asked for rodeos to be banned, saying that the code of welfare was adequate, and was being complied with. Ms Charleton’s video shows that both those claims were nonsense.

Chris Rodwell, MPI’s head of animal welfare compliance, who would not comment on the video, admitted the current codes of welfare were hard to enforce. However ‘‘We are developing some regulations . . . which will allow us to have some extra teeth in terms of enforcement’’.

That’s not what we need. What’s needed, as several other countries have decided, is a national ban on rodeos. It may be election year, but it is time politicians bit the bullet and banned this barbarous training in violence.