Bad press plagues Calgary Stampede again

TORONTO, July 18 (UPI) -- Bad weather and the recession were cited as reasons for an attendance decline of 41,242 people at Canada's annual Calgary Stampede, officials said.

Sunday was the 10th and final day of annual rodeo events, which have been conducted annually since 1912. Total attendance was down to 1,145,394 compared with 1,186,636 for the same period in 2009, the event's Web site said.

Senior communications manager Lindsey Galloway told UPI in an e-mail the decline was apparently "due to the poor weather on four of 10 days and a global recession which has reduced our international visitors," and that despite this year's dip, attendance has increased overall by 25 percent in the past decade.

His remarks came late Sunday after an earlier UPI story suggested public distaste with rodeo was growing in response to animal rights groups' efforts to portray it as inhumane.

In the first nine days of the Stampede, six horses died. Two of them had heart attacks, three were injured so badly they were euthanized by veterinarians at the 193-acre Stampede Park and the Pengrowth Saddledome stadium and the sixth death was being investigated, the Calgary Herald said. One horse bucked so hard it broke its own spine, local media said.

A rider suffered a head injury and fractured shoulder blade when her horse had a heart attack and rolled on top of her last week.

The event's worst year was 1986, when 12 horses died. Five years ago, nine horses died after plunging off a bridge over the Bow River while parading to the stadium.

Friday night at the rodeo's midway, a ride malfunctioned. Ten teenagers were injured and six were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Apart from the usual criticism from various humane societies in Western Canada, the campaign to end the rodeo gained more international attention when a group in Britain, where rodeos were banned as cruel in 1934, joined the fray.

The League Against Cruel Sports created a petition that was signed by more than 50 British Members of Parliament calling for Canada to ban such events as bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, wild pony racing and tie-down calf-roping.

In an e-mail to UPI, league spokeswoman Louise Robertson outlined the charity's position.

"The cruelty involved in the stampede is totally unacceptable regardless of how old this tradition is," she said. "Using animals for human entertainment in this manner is wrong and should not be condoned by any culture. No amount of prize money can justify abusing animals in this way and it only begs the question how many horses must die before the public realize this is morally wrong."

In light of the bad news, the not-for-profit Stampede points out it generates about $350 million into the local economy each year, the Calgary Sun said.

On the Stampede's Web site, organizers say there is a team of veterinarians onsite fulltime during the event and such groups as the Calgary Humane Society and the Alberta Society for the Protection of Animals have unfettered access to the 7,500 animals throughout the event.

"We take the care of our animals very seriously -- and we are always working hard to enhance our practices," the site says.

Cathy Maclean, a former trainer of standard-bred racehorses and past co-owner of a Thoroughbred racehorse in Toronto, told UPI she suspected the more than $2 million in prizes the Stampede offered this year was leading to more recklessness.

"It's a business, like racing. The animals are viewed as commodities," she said.

Elsewhere on the Stampede Web site, organizers described Sunday's closing chuckwagon races where teams of Thoroughbred horses pull wagons as "a one-shot go-for-broke performance."

"Thoroughbreds are not bred to haul and pull like that," Maclean said.

Proponents of rodeo events argue much less attention is paid to the horseracing industry -- also considered to use "entertainment animals" -- in North America.

Late last month, researcher Dr. Tim Parkin at Scotland's University of Glasgow released results of a survey of 73 racetracks in Canada and the United States showing there were 2.04 horse fatalities per 1,000 starts from Nov. 1, 2008, to Oct. 31, 2009.

The Stampede's Galloway claimed the event's fatality rate among 2,880 starts was 1.04 per 1,000, excluding animals that didn't actually die in competition.

Meanwhile, Fraser told the Toronto Star none of this year's horse deaths was the result of on-track accidents, human error or negligence.

"All we can say is to those who oppose us, is we respect their opinion and hope they will respect our right to our opinion," he told the newspaper.