The Ethics of Bull Riding and Rodeos

The Bullriders

The flames burst from the edge of the arena, bathing the audience in its orange glow. The smell of spent kerosene, cattle feces and human sweat fills my nose.

On a podium, at the edge of the arena, two blonde cowgirls dance, dressed in tight jeans, bustiers and black cowboy hats.

The audience cheers as the heroes of the day make their way onto the arena floor – the cowboys, each man wearing a bleached white hat, bright as a beacon, chiselled jaws, rippling muscles.

These are tough men. These are real men. These are the bullriders.

The bullriders file back out, behind the bullpens, where the bulls wait, snorting behind steel fences, hooves scrabbling at the ground, hungry for action.

The first rider gets set, settling upon the bull. His partner, behind the chute, tightens the strap up around the bull’s flanks. The rider nods.

The steel gate burst open, and the bull explodes out.

The crowd roars.

The bull , a great behemoth, whips and kicks and rips and spins. The cowboy can barely hang on, flapping around like a rag doll holding on with all his might, one arm flailing in the air.

And then, disaster. With a great buck of its hind legs, the bull kicks the cowboy to the dirt. But there’s something wrong. The cowboy can’t break free. He’s still strapped to the great beast, and the bull is bucking the man to the side, ripping into the cowboy’s torso, the man’s head smacking into the bull’s flanks over and over and over, dragging the man through the dirt.

Three other cowboys form a triangle around the bull as they try to lure the bull away. And finally, freedom! The bullrider breaks loose, and staggers away, injured and bleeding, but alive.

The bullrider clambers up the steel fence to safety, and the bull, its energy spent, saunters through the gate, back into its pen.

The applause from the crowd is deafening. They wanted blood. They got it.They wanted to see man battle with beast. They got it.

This is PBR Pro Bull Riding.

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The Protesters

Outside the arena, in the chill winter night, another crowd has gathered. Absent is the glamor and the bright lights. Absent are the big-breasted cowgirls. Absent are the chisel-jawed alpha-male cowboys.

Here, the people are dressed in winter jackets and woolen hats. Here, the people hold placards with slogans such as “Only Bullies Ride Bulls” and “Animal Cruelty is Not Entertaining”. A handful of police officers stand watch, but the crowd is well-behaved. Like the bulls, they too stand behind their own steel fence.

The chant begins. “There’s no excuse for animal abuse. There’s no excuse for animal abuse. There’s no excuse for animal abuse!”

“Shut the bloody hell up you bleedin’ hearts!” Yells a lone man wearing a cowboy hat from near the arena, “Nobody bloody cares what you bloody think!”

The protesters are unfazed. They continue their chant. They continue their fight. They continue their vigil. The continue, into the cold, cold night.

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The Morality Questions

On June 1st I took my wife to the Pro Bull Riding event at Darling Harbour as part of her birthday gift. I didn’t think much about the moral issues behind bull riding until I saw those protesters. The question was there. Is bull riding cruel?

1. I found that the most common misconception that people have about bull riding is that to get the bulls to buck, a strap is tightened around their testicles to a pain point. This is wrong. The strap is tightened around the ribs, and doesn’t cause pain. It’s a tickling sensation. If you’ve ever been tickled around the ribs, it’s similar to that.

2. These bulls are worth a lot of money, up to $500,000. It’s in the owners interest to treat the bulls well.

3. Bulls aren’t forced to buck. Some bulls are born to buck, some aren’t. Like people. Some are born for sport, some aren’t.

4. Each bull is in the arena for perhaps a total of 10 minutes a year. A typical bull ride only lasts for 8 seconds.

5. Compared to the cowboys who ride, the bulls lead a much easier, safer life.

6. Strict guidelines are in place within the PBR rules to ensure the safety and treatment of the bulls.

7. Compared to cattle destined for the meat industry, bull-riding bulls are treated like superstars. These bulls have an outlet for their aggression. Beef cattle live docile lives, sometimes completely confined, all ultimately destined for the slaughter.

8. Bull-riding does possess a number of dangers for the bulls though. There have been instances where extreme bucking has caused a bull to break its legs.

9. What happens to a bull when its useful life is over is a question that I haven’t found an answer to.

10. Ultimately, as a meat eater, I can’t have it both ways. I either accept both bull riding and the beef industry, or I reject them both. I don’t need to eat meat, just like we don’t need bull riding. I could eat fish. I choose to eat meat. Therefore I must accept bull-riding because it is ultimately less cruel than the beef industry.

I love animals. My beautiful dog is a part of my family. But, in the end, the fact that I eat meat, that I wear leather clothes, that I put milk into my tea, means that I tacitly comply with the idea that animals are a resource for humans to make use of. And like all of our resources, we should respect them and value them.