Two sides lock horns
The rodeo season is about to end, but questions behind the ethics of it linger. Carly Thomas talked to both sides in what is becoming an increasingly contentious sport.
When you dip down into the valley where the Bird family farms, their whole world opens up. The rolling folds of land before you are their universe and the bulls you see grazing the big open paddocks are their pride and joy.
Two generations work this land, but the focus is not breeding beef for the meat market. It’s breeding bulls that buck bigger, better and longer.
The Birds are in the game of bull riding and it’s the thing they live and breathe. There’s not much in their day-to-day that doesn’t join back up with bull riding eventually.
Something though, has changed for them lately. They are finding themselves more and more in the firing line of animal rights activists, who point the finger directly at the Bird’s livelihood.
Animal rights groups are adamant that bull riding is abuse. They say it is an unnecessary practice and they are hell-bent on getting rodeos shut down.
Their efforts have ramped up over the past few years and their approach has gained ground in the public eye. Google search ‘‘bull riding’’ in New Zealand and you won’t have to scroll too far before you see video footage of what campaigners are calling cruelty.
Shane Bird is the North Island club director for the New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association. He has been around rodeo since he started riding bulls as a teenager and went on to be a bull fighter and bull breeder. The scene is what he knows.
Allegations of animal cruelty get him and his father, Roger Bird, angry. They feel aggrieved by the information the activists circulate. And it’s inescapable, it’s in their faces at events and at their backs as new claims continue to arise. And the allegations are big. Marianne Macdonald is the campaigns manager for SAFE, a national animal rights organisation.
Rodeos, she says, provide entertainment for a minority and need to be stopped.
‘‘It is time to focus on teaching values of respect and compassion to impressionable children, making clear to them that tormenting animals is wrong. Towns and cities across New Zealand have so much to offer both locals and tourists, without causing harm to animals. We