The Calgary Stampede, the event that some critics call organized carnage and that supporters maintain is just good old-fashioned fun, is in high gear and running until Sunday.
The Stampede is an annual rodeo, exhibition and festival that bills itself as “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.”
It attracts over a million visitors a year, including plenty of politicians wearing cowboy hats and looking for votes.
Everybody seems to have a very good time.
Except, of course, the animals.
There are art shows, concerts, lots of good food, and–increasingly–an annual war of words between Stampede defenders and animal rights groups.
At issue is the treatment and the death of the animals used in the rodeo, especially the chuckwagon races.
Animal rights groups and human societies say 90 animals–horses and cattle–were killed or euthanized at the Stampede between 1986 and 2014.
Add two more horses to the list. Both had the misfortune to be pulling chuckwagons in this year’s rodeo.
On Tuesday, the national animal-rights organization Animal Justice called on the Calgary Humane Society to prosecute “inhumane rodeo practices” at the Calgary Stampede.
Anna Pippus is director of farmed animal advocacy for Animal Justice. She spoke with RCI by phone from her home in Vancouver.
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