Yesterday a steer died at the Calgary Stampede. This was the third death of an animal in the last week.

A grown 6 foot 4 220 pound man jumped off his horse and wrestled a steer to the ground. The steer sustained a spinal injury and didn’t get up. The comments are always the same after such deaths, “cowboys love the animals”, and “the animals are treated with the utmost respect”. Cowboys must have different versions of love and respect.

Joey Bell Jr. was the cowboy who killed the steer. In an interview with the Calgary Sun, Bell preposterously said that “It's just one of those unfortunate things that happens”. It didn’t just happen. Though deaths are rare in steer wrestling, why is the Stampede continuing to allow this juvenile and violent behaviour to continue?

The way we treat animals is atrocious. It is selective though too. We don’t wrestle around dogs, rope our cats or eat our horses. Many would be horrified if we did. But we wrestle steers, tie up calves, and have horses pull chuckwagons. All for what? For the money, the entertainment, or the enjoyment of inflicting pain on animals?

We have irrational ways of dealing with our guilt with animals. We routinely kill animals to eat, even though there are plenty of other food options. Some are fine as long as we humanely kill animals. This is like giving someone the electric chair instead of just a bullet through the head.

Humans are the supreme killing machine on earth right now. Though we have relatively large brains and room for compassion, we often don’t use either of these. Many things we just do because we have always done them with barely a thought as to why. Rodeo events fit in this category.

Newspapers have blocked ads that call for the ban of calf roping from the Vancouver Humane Society. The Calgary Sun CEO had the audacity to say that there are no sacred cows in journalism. Are you kidding? Did the Sun criticize the US when they invaded Iraq? Nope. They just crucified those that did. Does the Calgary Sun ever criticize the Stampede rodeo? Nope. The Calgary Sun CEO went on to say that they weren’t going to let outsiders insult a proud tradition and tell us how to run our rodeo. Sounds like a sacred cow to me.

Another justification for hurting and killing animals is that we don’t want to jeopardize jobs. I hereby propose that the Calgary Stampede rodeo instead have cowboys wrestling each other, riding each other, and roping each other. Have fun.

Why we keep instilling fear, pain, and stress onto animals I have no idea. Subjecting animals to this type of behaviour has to stop. To help put an end to cruelty to animals at the Calgary Stampede click here.