LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU
For the Love of God, Why do we Need Chuckwagon Races?
The Calgary Stampede began yesterday and, in, well, not exactly tribute, I give you a chapter from a book in progress. I wrote it a while back but continue to fuss with it (my waiver, if any content seems in need of an update). My focus is on the need for conservatives/right-of-centre/moderate right-of-centre and squishy-middle types to get on board with improving the lot of animals. Note on “conservative” - there’s a wonderful scene in Hannah and Her Sisters, where Woody Allen’s character is considering becoming Catholic. He speaks with a priest and is asked why he is interested in Catholicism. His reply: “First of all, because it’s a very beautiful religion, and it’s a strong religion, it’s very well-structured. You know, I’m talking now incidentally about the against school prayer, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear wing.” This is how I sometimes feel. I am in the pro-animal, pro-gay rights branch of conservatism and in the pro-free market, pro-having-a-strong-military wing of animal advocacy. But whatever your politics, wherever you stand, don’t leave animals and their fate to someone else. Their welfare should never be a partisan matter.
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“I thought what you were saying was ridiculous. But now I agree.” That was my partner speaking a few years ago. He was looking back on our early dating days. I had apparently said, as we watched TV coverage of steer riding at a rodeo – or rather, as he watched it and I ran from the room in horror - that as no one had asked the steer’s permission for this nonsense, it was morally wrong for it to continue. Ditto bronco riding. Ditto every silly event where animals are made to perform, come to think of it.
To me, it is clear. One would think the fact that the steer or bronco is trying to throw the guy off would give a general clue. But animals beaten into submission might not put up a fight – would a calf being roped be able to muster much physical opposition to the ordeal? How anyone can view this as entertainment is a mystery. What did Orwell say, about how seeing what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant effort? Forcing animals to perform is unethical. Does it not occur to us that the steer or the bronc might prefer to be out standing in a field, munching on greens? Or hanging out with the herd? Or maybe just being alone, contemplating life? We do not know. We thought only of what we valued and how we could fit animals into that scenario.
[Residents of Sherkin Island, Ireland. Photo: Rondi Adamson, 2018]
And really, Canada, do we need chuckwagon races? Does anyone? “Oh, but the drivers think of their horses as family.” Then they should hook their wife or sister up to the wagon. I am not always a fan of the satirical site The Beaverton, but I thought they hit the nail on the head with their story entitled, Calgary Stampede Cowboy Euthanized after Chuckwagon Race Injury, and the following paragraph: “The 42-year-old male Caucasian, named ‘Sid’, was thrown from his wagon after a tight turn during a hotly contested race. After limping off the track, the frightened rider was cornered by race officials and a doctor, who evaluated the injury and quickly decided that his racing career was over. Surrounding Sid with white sheets to prevent onlookers from witnessing the end-of-life procedure, the doctor administered a lethal injection. ‘It’s never easy to lose a companion like that,’ explained Calgary Stampede organizer Dale Nugget. ‘He was like family to many of us – especially to his wife and kids.’”
Another justification is, “Oh, but horses love running!” They do. When they want. With whom they want. With, perhaps, a human owner who cares for them. But probably not while pulling chuckwagons or being whipped. It is true that humans die at some sporting events, but those humans have chosen to participate. And even then, there are debates about the ethics of certain aspects of popular sports – American football, boxing and the UFC come to mind. How much barbarity do we allow simply because people want it? I am not against human beings willingly taking risks - it is an important part of life - but there should be limits, even for us and certainly for those we co-opt into our games.
The 2020 Calgary Stampede was cancelled – so Covid had a silver lining – but the one in the previous year was tied in second place as “deadliest year for chuckwagon horses in more than three decades…Total animal deaths at rodeo and chuckwagon races have topped 100 since 1986.” A scaled-down Calgary Stampede took place in 2021, with no chuckwagon races but unfortunately still with several rodeo events. Its website featured a section called “Our Commitment to Animal Care” – a sign that public opinion is shifting and beginning to demand at least some superficial expression or understanding of what is at stake when animals are forced to perform. Sadly, in 2022, the stampede was back in full force, all animal events on and the usual awful headlines: horse hit in the face, horse dead. I hope one day the statement on the stampede website will simply read, “Our commitment to animal care demands that we cancel all animal events.”
The Calgary Stampede bills itself as “the greatest outdoor show on earth.” For Canada’s politicians, the Stampede is a chance to put on a cowboy hat and try to win votes; for animals, it is a blood sport and a gruesome display of unnecessary violence. You would think, then, that the Green Party, NDP and maybe even some Liberal politicians would avoid it. And yet in 2015, shortly after the NDP’s Rachel Notley had been elected premier of Alberta – with an impressive majority -- there she was, at the inaugural pancake breakfast. In the days after her victory, my animal advocate friends were ecstatic. More women in power! More leftists! More progressive policies! More goodness and niceness! But that goodness and niceness only extended so far.
That same summer, then Liberal leader Justin Trudeau even had a contest where you and a friend could join him at the Stampede. "Honey, you want to have pancakes with Justin Trudeau and then go watch an animal being terrorized or driven to an early death?” Elizabeth May was also there, sans contest to join her at breakfast. That week I wrote the following in Huffington Post Canada: “I attempted to contact several of Canada's progressive leaders to ask where they stood on the treatment of animals at the Stampede. So far, only May has responded. She stated that she does not attend any animal events at the Stampede and that she is against calf-roping and chuck-wagon races. I appreciated her response and her clarification and I understand that the Stampede is, in many ways, like Toronto's Pride Parade -- politicians are expected to be there and it's a way for them to pretend they're at ease with all voters. But wouldn't May and others make a more powerful statement by not attending the Stampede in any capacity until inhumane rodeo events are cancelled?”
It is not that Canada's progressive politicians are any worse than any other politicians where animal welfare is concerned. It is that I see no evidence they are any better. I would love to see animal champions from Canada’s Conservative Party step up here, and I hope the many sponsors of the Stampede will insist in future that their support depends on changes. It is not as though opposing the animal events at rodeos were representative of some eccentric world view. Nearly all animal welfare organizations in the world oppose them, the UK and Holland have banned rodeos altogether and many jurisdictions in Europe, Australia and the United States have restricted animal events at rodeos. And it is not as though opposing those same events were new.
Professor John Sorenson’s excellent book About Canada: Animal Rights references a 1911 issue of the Fort McLeod Advertiser in which an editorial describes a rodeo there as “a relic of barbarism…when unwilling beasts have to be goaded and frightened into action and are ridden about with blood from the spurs dripping from their flanks, the whole outfit responsible for ‘the show’ should be hauled up for cruelty to animals.”
Public pressure works. In 2007, after a calf died during a roping event at British Columbia’s Cloverdale Rodeo, advocates wrote to some of Cloverdale’s corporate sponsors and the outcry led the rodeo to permanently drop four roping events, including “cowboy cow milking.” Putting pressure on corporations was faster and far more effective than electing left-of-centre politicians. Oh, and cowboy cow milking? It is what it sounds like – cowboys rope a cow, jump off their horses and terrify the poor creature en masse as one cowboy grabs her head while another grabs her udder. (Seriously? Why, why, why?)
Cities across Canada have hosted rodeos, including Toronto via its CNE. But Calgary’s event is huge and for that reason alone garners most of the attention and the protests. I had a young libertarian friend years ago, an Albertan, who insisted to me that he really cared about animal welfare and disapproved of many of the events at the Stampede. But he viewed absolutely everything through the lens of “Alberta versus Ottawa,” or, in my case, Toronto. He saw me as a latte-drinking Upper Canadian who looked down on Alberta. Only part of that is true – the latte-drinking, Upper-Canadian part.
I look down on all animal events, including the Grey Cup rodeo in November 2019. As its name indicates, it coincided with the CFL championship. There was something fitting about that, I guess, but as I have said before, if humans want to bash their heads together violently and run really fast with a ball in their hands, that is their choice. But leave the animals be. Rodeos are also about pancakes and marching bands and visiting British royals, all things of which I approve. These things should become the focus in future and “stampede” could refer to the stampede of humans showing up to enjoy themselves in a benign fashion.
Public opinion is on my side and on the side of the animals…at least in parts of the country. A survey taken in Canada in 2019 “asked people how they feel about using animals in rodeos generally and found six-in-10 oppose the practice,” with the highest opposition being in British Columbia and Quebec. The City of Vancouver and the district of North Vancouver are the only municipalities in Canada to have banned rodeos entirely. (Thank you, hippies.) I wonder what the same survey would say now that the pandemic is over. For it is not just the Calgary Stampede that was cancelled in 2020. The running of the bulls in Pamplona and bullfighting in other parts of Spain, the Kentucky Derby, horse and dog racing in Tasmania and other rodeos and animal events around the world were suspended. One hopes these suspensions last forever (spoiler alert: they won’t).
If I may again outsource to The Beaverton, from their story Calgary Stampede cancelled, chuckwagon horses to be euthanized anyway, “After announcing that the Calgary Stampede would be cancelled for the first time in its 108-year history due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Stampede organizers were at pains to stress that this would not hinder the traditional killing of chuckwagon horses that accompany the large rodeo festival.”
It is funny because it could be true.