Mike it has been proven that the person that has taken those videos and posted them has doctored them to look more favoreably upon his opinion. He is also a convicted FELON!! You as well as many of your co-horts have been offered the ulimate rebuttal by being invited to a rodeo complete with a tour of the back pens but you CHOOSE to remain ignorant. That is a choice you make. We have nothing to hide as a sport as far as the PRCA is concerned. We HAVE released truthful statistics regarding the injury rate but you and your group has CHOSEN to deny them. We have highly respected vetrinarians who have vouched for the treatment of our animal athletes but you CHOOSE to deny a professional opinion. You and your constituents have even gone so far as to spout a conflicting opinion of a vetrinarian who has been dead for 20 years!! Let me ask you something wouldn't you think that an animal advoate organization such as the one you espouse would have some sort of facility to house or pen these so called mistreated animals or that they would spend more than 350.00 in a YEAR for pet care!! I got those figures from the most recent tax returns that are available from guidestar by the way. You will notice that I have not nor will I mention the name of this organization nor it's founder because truth be told the only thing he is interested in is PUBLICITY. If he was truly concerned with these animals he waould be more willing to fund a facility to care for them.

The whole purpose is to aggrevative an animal into a panic, correct. You can't train an animal to buck, kick, twist like they do to get you off their back. Of course there is shocking going on and you can see the binding of their scrotum when the terrified animal is bucking to get you off of him. Are you really going to say that there is none of that going on? You sound just like the circus proponents, and the USDA Vets at slaughterhouses. "Nothing to see here, everything is fine, move along". Whenever, the scutiny of a hidden camera reveals facts that can't be denied, in almost every instance, the people caught or their spokesperson says it was doctored or not as bad as it seems on camera. C'mon, how stupid do you think people are? Obviously very stupid! You can't HONESTLY say that what you do is a sport, when you rely on terrified animals to accomplish your goals. Yes, it takes someone one with a big ego or just doesn't care what happens to them from the human side of this animal cruelty. They are not volunteers, any more than dogs at the dog tracks are or horses at the horse tracks. Many of the dogs will begome injured or get older and are killed (a few are adopted) same for horses, most ex-horse racing horses will end up at slaughter houses. To have people believe that animals are not terrified especially the babies is just plain wrong and all of you know it or should, or don't care! I have nothing against any of the people personally, but when they use animals for their own entertainment and "so-called" achievements then that person is participating in animal cruelty which I would hope any thinking person would find to be wrong and not condone such exploitation. It gets very old hearing from so many groups of people that exploite animals, such as hunters, rodeo people, circus owners, bull fighting, slaughterhouse owners and the USDA looking the other way, when a live animal is being cut in two. It happens often, yet people still buy meat or that animals flesh. For many they have bought into the lie from the meat industry that all animals are killed humanely and are well treated during their miserable existence on this planet. Now days, the USDA won't even allow anyone to go with them when they inspect a "processing plant". Things are happening so fast that the chance of an "outsider" seeing what really happens inside is going to present itself often, so no windows and the security of a prison.

You claim to invite people on a tour of the rodeo "backstage" is somewhat comendable, yet again, you can control the environment, and everyone is "on guard" and NOT "off guard", and will not use the traditional tools of the trade, that you say are not used. It reminds me of inmates in prison; everyone says their innocent of any wrong doing. Were they all convicted with doctored evidence, which made them "look" guilty. That would seem like a really long stretch, at least to me ( of course some are innocent, as later proven with DNA ). I think you can get my point here. That is what so many people that exploite animals say when confronted with video or witnesses of cruelty, torture and death, "they made the video seem much worse than it is, or they didn't see what really happened", nonsense!

Personally, I do not want to have a good time at the expense of animals being terrified, often injured (many times after they leave the viewing area, where the extent of the injuries are revealed). If a person wants to climb Mt. Everest or fight another person who is just as willing, that is a respectable way to challenge ones self or even at the circus, their are numerous acts that people do without animals and do it willingly. These individuals, in my opinion, are people that get my respect for entertaining other people, yet only risking themselves in the process. THere are many "sports" where people engage in dangerous actions not involving animals, such as are prize fighters. They fight each other, and when they step into that ring both sides know the rules and the risks and don't use an animal to make them look good.

Finally, I understand anyone defending what they have known all their lives, such as people in the rodeo. You don't see it as a cruel event, rather a place to measure the courage and tenacity of an individual, and to please the crowd, at least I believe that to be truth of what you believe. I do hope someday we will all see that "all of us" as a society have been very cruel to animals, particularly "man's best friend" where 10 million are killed every year in this country alone. Some best friend! So I do not point my finger at anyone individual (at least here anyway), it takes all of us to allow and support the cruelty that we inflict on the least among us.

It is a shame the networks like NBC and MSNBC, don't use their massive communication systems to show the horrors that are inflicted on animals, rather than show cruelty, and deny or obfuscate the truth!

Regards,

Paul Hester

Mr. Hester,

In my younger days I rode in a few rodeos and, in the past forty years, have attended a great many more.

Now, sir, let me ask you a question: how would it make any sense to a stock contractor to abuse or mistreat an animal that could be worth upward of a $100,000 and that could, during its lifetime, earn him millions?

Rodeo rough stock —bulls, saddle and bareback broncs— are bred from other rough stock. They are selected for their natural tendency to buck. They are not, they cannot be trained to do what they do naturally.

Nor, I would suggest, could any person be trained to do that which is outside of their natural ability. I, for example, can't throw a ball through a hoop even though more able friends have tried to teach me how to do that. Nor, I might add, could I stretch my six-foot frame to the lofty heights profesional basketball players need be.

I sympathise with your position on animal abuse, as does every animal owner that I know.

I would suggest, sir, that you take a closer look at that which you condemn before you make lengthy and inaccurate comments.

Let's cut through the rhetorical questions regarding how much a rodeo animal is worth. A steer is worth a few hundred dollars. Here is a video link to steer busting, a PRCA sanctioned event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRPGY5lDQU

This is animal abuse. Time to admit the obvious.

A bull for breeding beef is worth more than a few hundred dollars, a rodeo bull is worth way more. Much like horse breeding (where good names on a pedegree, or proven winners in the line can cost you upwards of $100,000) the value of a bull is not only represented in how often he is used and how nasty he is, but in how many offpspring he can sire. People pay biiiig bucks to have certain bloodlines in their animals. These bulls are worth much more than a few hundred dollars.

And any one who says that the animals have to be frightened to buck and twist has never rode a rank horse! I owned a horse who was never abused, or mistreated, but when she decided she didn't want to do something she'd flip me right off.

SHARK investigators have attended plenty of rodeos from coast to coast, from Cowtown in New Jersey to the Rowell Ranch Rodeo in California, including Cheyenne, Denver, Tucson, the NFR, Salinas and many, many more in the PRCA, as well as the National High School, and National College Rodeo Finals and many, many more. There is video documentation of shocking at all of them, and they are up on YouTube for the world to see. It is a little late for denials.

Here are just a few:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h9T6cdT034
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlSXMNxaQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEq6gjE8JFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwKWWfqRwiY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69g6jMUMwcw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG9YYOQjjYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyvyr4q1NM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZRNiwlB034

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3U_i7zQ4l4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Zj59ton9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLW_Vpw2ZY0

There more - lots more, if you want it.

yeah right! c'mon get serious. these animals do this naturally? hah! only if someone climbs onto them and treats them poorly do they try and buck someone off, just like flys hunbs on their backs are pests period!

I base nothing on YouTube. I've seen what happens personally. The fact is that horses are shocked at the NFR. The videotape doesn't lie.

Are you aware that the Steer Roping finals cannot even be held with the rest of the finals in Las Vegas? Ever wonder why that is? The Nevada State Veterinarian will not allow it - he says too many animals are injured. Search YouTube for Steer busting to see the wonderful treatment rodeo gives to the animals. Steer after after steer are injured and sledded out at these events that the PRCA has to hold elsewhere.

The reason that it is held elsewhere is because it is impossible to hold there due to siz contraints

Mr. Lewis, are you really going to claim that in wide open Nevada there is no space for the steer busting finals, so the PRCA had to move the steer busting finals over eleven hundred miles away to Guthrie, Oklahoma? Are you really trying to sell that lemon?

Backing your stance with rodeo propaganda is worthless. When SHARK challenges rodeo claims of humanity, we do it with video documentation, not rhetoric. Our 100+ videos up on YouTube show clear humane violations and abuse, including violations at the NFR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h9T6cdT034

I'd hardly believe anything SHARK has to say.
Also, in your earlier posts you say that ex-race horses go to slaughter... Kind of hard when horse slaughter is shut down nationwide.

And in addition, the handler and owners are very knowledgeable about what is normal and not normal for their animal. I've gotten called to see many that they were worried were hurt or colicking from the littlest signs. Most were all right, but it was nice to see owners so in-tune with their animals and ready to fix them if necessary. It may be more of protecting an investment than love, but the animals are overall treated fairly - that's all that matters.

Like I said before, again, I am sure there are bad practices scattered around. But you'll find bad owners, bad ranchers, bad everything if you look. Don't paint the entire industry, be it rodeo, beef, dairy, circus, etc with one broad brush.

@ A DMV I would say that protecting an investment, is much different than out of love, for the "final" result of what they are going to do to that animal is the critical point to be made here. I would disagree "animals are overall treated fairly - that's what matters". Cattle ranchers treat their cattle very well, yet we all know they are headed to a horrifying death at some point in the future. The mere fact that these animals are going to their deaths; or circus animals to entertain people and do tricks that are extremely "un-natural", meaningless to the animals, and trained to do so with pain and submission is where I find your theory lacking of any "true" concern for the individual animal's life.

As a DVM, do you stand by steer busting, calf jerkdowns, and shocking animals to make them appear wild? As for the claim that there are "bad practices scattered around," isn't that why there are judges - to achieve uniformity in the way the rules are adhered to? The only uniformity in the rodeo world is that all the judges watch violations and do nothing.

Why do PRCA judges, as well as judges for high school and college rodeos watch as animals are shocked? Why would any rodeo association, much less the PRCA, sanctioned steer busting or calf jerkdowns?

What about your oath as a vet to "first, do no harm"?

@ Pilot-1 and Dennis W., Gentleman, I have been around horses, dogs, cats, wild birds, snakes, and many other animals most of my life. I owned an Animal Hospital for 8 years, I wasn't the Vet, but learned a lot about animals in pain, fear and their trust, even the wild animals that came in, I felt knew they were in safe hands many times. My partner, the actual Vet, is amazing with animals, large and small. I learned a lot from him over many years and still do as friends.

Too Pilot-1, I didn't say that I thought the animals were trained to buck or act the way they do, there we agree, that can't be taught what they will do naturally when using all their might to escape or free themselves from a man or woman chasing them on a horse or on their back. What I was saying, was that to push the limits of their fear and pain, Shock is used and Scrotums are tied up in a painful way. We both know that the bulls that are the toughest to ride are worth the most, and I don't see the conflict of the "owner's interest" to shock or aggravate the bulls with pain in their scrotum, if it makes that bull nearly "unrideable", and all bulls ridden do not rise to the $100,000 + mark and are given more incentive to buck and quickly rid themselves of the person on their back. The shock will not leave much of a mark, some burned hairs, because it is not left on there like a branding iron to burn the skin and sometimes flesh which both will leave a scar showing ownership. I have seen shocks given and know it exists. If the rodeos want to act like the recent R&BB Circus and deny that they use harsh measures to train and manage the elephants, for example, especially when most district courts routinely side (with very few exceptions) with the USDA, Interior Dept, rodeos, circuses, cattlemen and other varied animal ranchers and farms, then I suppose there is little left to say about tools and methods used to make animals act in a certain way or intensify an already high feeling of fear among animals used to entertain people or for that matter killed in horrifying ways for humans to eat at our modern "factory farms".

There is much to be done to fight for these animals, through the Courts and Congress for animals being exploited, abused and killed! I will never stop being an animal adovate or "activist" as you may call me. The USDA is the main defender of animal abuse, despite it being the job of the USDA to "protect" animals from abuse, and it's hard to fight such a huge organization/corporation within the government. Perhaps things won't change much in my lifetime, but I am certain the next couple of generations behind us will see animal abuse and be MUCH less tolerant of it than this generation ever considered.

I do believe both of you have a sincere love of the Rodeo and care of the animals. I wish the two of you were the norm and not the exception, that being of course, my opinion, based on my eyes, ears and research into these issues.

Regards,

Paul

And I, Northerner, saw a friend die after being struck in the sternum by a bull's horn.

While isolated tragic incidents do occur, they are the rarity and not the norm.

@ buck Have you seen any "cruelty" ever at a rodeo in your 40 years sir? If you did, did you report it. What was the outcome if you did? Just claiming that The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association is above "cruelty" doesn't make it so. You are in a business were you depend on terrified animals to do what terrified animals do when trying to escape their situation. Can you at least agree to that much sir? Can you agree that the environment you place animals in is certainly not a safe one? Remember they are not there for their egos or money (or whatever cowboys do it for), they are forced into your business and there are minimal, if any laws to protect these animals, which to be fair there are not many laws at all for any animals in this country, and those few laws are often ignored by the justice system.

You mentioned the horse slaughterhouse in Mexico, which is true, I have seen a video of a horse being killed several different ways, shot in the head, captive bolt gun, and a knife to cut it's spinal cord all took at least two attempts and the captive bolt gun and the cutting of the spinal cord took many attempts and in the end the horse was still alert and alive, while being hung upside down by a chain on on leg. Which is the little secret about cattle slaughterhouses, the true purpose of the stun gun is as implied to stun, however by law (USDA) up to 5% of all cattle going into the kill box are allowed to come out fully aware and alive, because often times the bolt doesn't do the job and it is totally dependent on the operator skill and alertness. I would not be surprised to hear of videos coming out of Canada slaughterhouses for horse flesh to be sent overseas. This the same government that brutally kills very young seal pups that still have the white fur for protection, that is why @ 300,000 of them are killed every year there. It is sickening to watch one species be so vile and barbaric to another, particularly their young! So excuse me, but I didn't understand what your point was, did whoever used the video say it was in the US? Now that I mention it, there is going to be what I call the "Horse Slaughter Summit" in Las Vegas January 3-6 2011, to plan for and convince our government that Horse Slaughterhouses have vital role in our economy and horse welfare (welfare?, yes they said welfare) interests! Bob Abbey the Director of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) under the Interior Department with Ken Salazar as Secretary. Look it up under Horse Summit and see they are not hiding the fact that they want to make killing horses legal again in the US, for the economy of certain areas and the horse's welfare! I do hope your organization (PRCA) is against this and fights for your horses and others that could wind up at a US slaughterhouse, perhaps much easier than being transported to Mexico or Canada only to let those countries do the dirty work and than send off the pieces of horse flesh to foreign markets.

I know I got off topic somewhat, but there is some overlap of many of these issues. I hope I asked what to you will be legitimate questions, for I only want to know the truth about what is happening to our "charges", the animals.

Regards,

Paul Hester

Sir or Madam, you are either a liar or carelessly ignorant, as I am not a felon. If you wish to find a felon, however, I can help you. Just go to CowboyCriminals.com and you will see a number of felons, including former PRCA Commissioner Troy Ellerman, Jimmy Brazile, Larry Lancaster just to name a few. The crimes range from drugs, to sexual predators, to animal abuse, to beating pregnant girlfriends, to lying to a federal judge, and a whole range of truly despicable crimes.

Now, back to the issue at hand. You lack of response apparently indicates you agree with me. Thanks a bunch.

Sir,

Your fabricated and/or irrelevant history of my life is evidence that you are unable to respond to the rodeo issues I raised. It isn't just irrelevant, it's downright weird. Frankly, it sounds like you need some help.