Animal abuse

Buffalo: Add my voice to the chorus of outrage that Madison Square Garden is hosting a rodeo. Countless animals have paid with their lives to satisfy people’s desire to play cowboy. Cattle are zapped with electric hotshots so they’ll charge out of the chute, calves have their necks twisted as they are violently slammed into the ground and horses are viciously spurred into bucking. Animals used in rodeo have suffered broken backs and necks, heart attacks and aneurysms. Those who manage to make it through unscathed are given little time to rest or recuperate. They are loaded into trucks, hauled to the next event and forced to participate over and over again. When too old or worn out to continue, “retirement” is a oneway trip to the slaughterhouse. Everyone who cares about animals agrees that it’s time to put rodeo out to pasture.

Jennifer O’Connor