Animal Rights Activists Protest Calf Roping at Fair
About 25 animal rights activists staged a protest Saturday at the Orange County Fair when they stood during the fair’s rodeo calf-roping event wearing bright T-shirts with the phrase “Rodeos Hurt Animals.”
“Our point today was not confrontational but to make a statement about how animals are treated during rodeos,” said Ava Park of Costa Mesa, a spokeswoman for Orange County People for Animals.
The group contends that animals take a beating during calf roping and other events. In addition to the protest inside, an airplane flew over the fairgrounds with a red banner that said: “Rodeos Hurt Animals! OC People for Animals.”
“When you’re going 20 to 25 miles an hour and the head is twisted around or forced to the ground, it can result in broken necks, backs and legs,” Park said.
After the demonstration, activists held signs protesting animal treatment at rodeos in front of the fair’s main gate. Neither demonstration was disruptive, fair security said.
A spokesman for Triangle T Rodeo Co. in Bloomington, Calif., which produces the fair’s rodeo, acknowledged that at times “rodeos do agitate” certain animals to perform. This includes cinching tight “comfort belts” put on broncs to make them buck, he said.
Brad Young, Triangle’s rodeo organizer, said “if you had a bee on your arm, you would shake it trying to get it off.”
“There’s no one on the rodeo grounds that is more concerned about the well-being of those animals than myself,” Young said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
