Summer is here and local fairs, circuses, rodeos and other events are once again advertising animal acts that draw big crowds and big bucks for the organizers, while possibly harming and exploiting the animal performers.  What most people don’t know (or choose to ignore) is that virtually every one of these animal performances is achieved by employing cruel methods to force animals to perform in ways that are both unnatural and harmful to them. 

Animal brutality for fun and profit affects animals across the spectrum, like horses, bulls, calves and pigs; as well as exotic circus animals like elephants, monkeys, big cats, orca whales and more.  All these have been subjected to cruel “training” methods to get them to perform in ways that, while detrimental and stressful to the animals, bring in the biggest profits for event organizers.

Right now, many of the events in our area incorporate the abuse of animals as a necessary feature to ensure maximum profitability.  Some fairs have both a horse and a pony pull, events that force teams of each to drag heavily weighted sleds, sometimes weighing more than the animals pulling them, over a specified distance. The team that pulls the heaviest weight wins, but at what cost to the animals involved? 

In addition to performing in oppressive summer heat, the horses and ponies risk straining or otherwise damaging muscles, rupturing internal organs and/or breaking bones.  Using heavy-weight horse teams may have been a farming necessary in the past when there was no alternative for pulling wagons and farm equipment. But it has no relevance whatever in today’s world, and only poses the risk of serious injury to the horses.  

Other fairs take these practices even further. In addition to the dangerous draft horse pulls, some also have pig races, an event that takes piglets, ages 2 1/2 to 4 months, from their mothers and forces them to race in the August heat, often multiple times a day, surrounded by screaming crowds and blaring loudspeakers. The miserable and frightened piglets are hauled from venue to venue, to race day after day until they age out and are sold to be slaughtered or used to breed more piglets.  

These cruel, for-profit animal practices must stop!  Please call on the event sponsors to cease and desist in this shameful abuse of animals for profit. Thank you for your compassion and help with this.

Star D. Hesse
Narrowsburg, NY