The Ethics of Bull Riding and Rodeos
The Bullriders
The flames burst from the edge of the arena, bathing the audience in its orange glow. The smell of spent kerosene, cattle feces and human sweat fills my nose.
On a podium, at the edge of the arena, two blonde cowgirls dance, dressed in tight jeans, bustiers and black cowboy hats.
The audience cheers as the heroes of the day make their way onto the arena floor – the cowboys, each man wearing a bleached white hat, bright as a beacon, chiselled jaws, rippling muscles.
These are tough men. These are real men. These are the bullriders.
The bullriders file back out, behind the bullpens, where the bulls wait, snorting behind steel fences, hooves scrabbling at the ground, hungry for action.
The first rider gets set, settling upon the bull. His partner, behind the chute, tightens the strap up around the bull’s flanks. The rider nods.
The steel gate burst open, and the bull explodes out.
The crowd roars.
The bull , a great behemoth, whips and kicks and rips and spins. The cowboy can barely hang on, flapping around like a rag doll holding on with all his might, one arm flailing in the air.
And then, disaster. With a great buck of its hind legs, the bull kicks the cowboy to the dirt. But there’s something wrong. The cowboy can’t break free. He’s still strapped to the great beast, and the bull is bucking the man to the side, ripping into the cowboy’s torso, the man’s head smacking into the bull’s flanks over and over and over, dragging the man through the dirt.
Three other cowboys form a triangle around the bull as they try to lure the bull away. And finally, freedom! The bullrider breaks loose, and staggers away, injured and bleeding, but alive.
The bullrider clambers up the steel fence to safety, and the bull, its energy spent, saunters through the gate, back into its pen.
The applause from the crowd is deafening. They wanted blood. They got it.They wanted to see man battle with beast. They got it.
This is PBR Pro Bull Riding.
The Protesters
Outside the arena, in the chill winter night, another crowd has gathered. Absent is the glamor and the bright lights. Absent are the big-breasted cowgirls. Absent are the chisel-jawed alpha-male cowboys.
Here, the people are dressed in winter jackets and woolen hats. Here, the people hold placards with slogans such as “Only Bullies Ride Bulls” and “Animal Cruelty is Not Entertaining”. A handful of police officers stand watch, but the crowd is well-behaved. Like the bulls, they too stand behind their own steel fence.
The chant begins. “There’s no excuse for animal abuse. There’s no excuse for animal abuse. There’s no excuse for animal abuse!”
“Shut the bloody hell up you bleedin’ hearts!” Yells a lone man wearing a cowboy hat from near the arena, “Nobody bloody cares what you bloody think!”
The protesters are unfazed. They continue their chant. They continue their fight. They continue their vigil. The continue, into the cold, cold night.
The Morality Questions
On June 1st I took my wife to the Pro Bull Riding event at Darling Harbour as part of her birthday gift. I didn’t think much about the moral issues behind bull riding until I saw those protesters. The question was there. Is bull riding cruel?
I found that the most common misconception that people have about bull riding is that to get the bulls to buck, a strap is tightened around their testicles to a pain point. This is wrong. The strap is tightened around the ribs, and doesn’t cause pain. It’s a tickling sensation. If you’ve ever been tickled around the ribs, it’s similar to that.
These bulls are worth a lot of money, up to $500,000. It’s in the owners interest to treat the bulls well.
Bulls aren’t forced to buck. Some bulls are born to buck, some aren’t. Like people. Some are born for sport, some aren’t.
Each bull is in the arena for perhaps a total of 10 minutes a year. A typical bull ride only lasts for 8 seconds.
Compared to the cowboys who ride, the bulls lead a much easier, safer life.
Strict guidelines are in place within the PBR rules to ensure the safety and treatment of the bulls.
Compared to cattle destined for the meat industry, bull-riding bulls are treated like superstars. These bulls have an outlet for their aggression. Beef cattle live docile lives, sometimes completely confined, all ultimately destined for the slaughter.
Bull-riding does possess a number of dangers for the bulls though. There have been instances where extreme bucking has caused a bull to break its legs.
What happens to a bull when its useful life is over is a question that I haven’t found an answer to.
Ultimately, as a meat eater, I can’t have it both ways. I either accept both bull riding and the beef industry, or I reject them both. I don’t need to eat meat, just like we don’t need bull riding. I could eat fish. I choose to eat meat. Therefore I must accept bull-riding because it is ultimately less cruel than the beef industry.
I love animals. My beautiful dog is a part of my family. But, in the end, the fact that I eat meat, that I wear leather clothes, that I put milk into my tea, means that I tacitly comply with the idea that animals are a resource for humans to make use of. And like all of our resources, we should respect them and value them.
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Never been the least bit interested in the rodeo and I spent some time living in Calgary. It was always the midway and the exhibits for me. I think it is uneccessary, unlike meat. Ex-vegeterarian and vegan here. If you want to be healthy and vital long-term, meat is necessary. My eyes have been opened very wide on that one. I've eaten just about every way a person can eat. Meat is necessary. The rodeo isn't. But if certain standards are met. Standards that are arrived at through legislation. I choose then to understand that my own opinion should be a guiding principle in my behavior but no one else's. I don't get to tell everyone what to do. One, it is not my place and two, it's an impossible job.
This kind of protesting gets my griddle too. I see it more like bullying than protesting and often they give the worse of the worse scenarios and pass it off as common place. Purposely mislead. For example, pictures of cows with their heads poking through bars. "Oh that is awful," we say. No that is feeding time and they are free to roam about the rest of the day. Or they show pictures of something happening across the world. They use misleading propaganda to convince people to put their health in jeopardy. Believe it or not, it is a worldwide movement and has been going on for decades and the big food producers are involved. The push for plant-based is huge and has profit as its main motivator and not healthy or animal welfare. Geez, mono-cropping kills and maims like nothing else. It is the bigger problem but it is likely to stay hidden behind good intentions. Eat your meat (or fish. It's meat too) And stay sane, vital, and healthy.
Thanks for your comment. It's clear that you've put a lot of thought into these issues. I admire your point of view - you have your own stance, but aren't bogged down to the point where it's become an ideology which you want to foist upon others. If only more people were like you and viewed their own opinion as a guiding principle in personal behavior, then the world would be a more open, less divisive place!
I've never been into rodeo or bullriding either. My wife is mad keen on horse-riding and all things related to farm-life. I can take it or leave it, but I do admit that I was excited to go because it's something I'd never experienced. Now I have experienced it, I don't think I would go again. Not because of the moral issues, but rather, because it's something I only need to experience once in my life.
It must have been tough avoiding the Rodeo in Calgary, what with the Stampede. My wife and I were there last Xmas, and even though it wasn't Stampede season, every tourist-related area was still plastered with Stampede-related paraphernalia!
Ahhh the corporate spiders weave a tangled web, don't they? Keeping people unhealthy is in their interests - they can then feed us ever more low-quality food, and then ply us with pharmaceuticals when we get sick!
Interestingly no one ever seemed too worried if I did not want to go to the rodeo or take part in that side of things. I think a lot of bonafide cowboys (working cowboys) might not be all that into rodeo either. There were so many other ways to get involved and enjoy community.
I haven't met enough bona-fide working cowboys to know whether or not they are into the rodeo, but that may very well make sense. I was looking up one of the champions of the PBR Australia, and the guy is a drilling engineer.
The rancers tend to be over in the 4H club.
I just don't see any point in this and wouldn't call it a sport. More of a challenge, but not a sport.
I agree, I don't see it as a sport. They do refer to the bulls as 'athletes' though, which I find interesting.