The fact that five horses had to be put down as a result of the Calgary Stampede's 2019 Rangeland Derby chuckwagon races and another died of a medical condition, is extremely sad.
I love animals too. We have a couple of pets of our own. And if you ask those in the sport of chuckwagon racing they love those horses live members of their own family, and were extremely distressed at what happened.
Stampede officials say they too are upset that decision had to be taken and as a result, they plan to undertake a "thorough review process" to make chuckwagon racing safer.
That's not good enough for some animal rights groups — including Trev Miller of Calgary Animal Rights Effort (CARE) who stood outside the Victoria Park CTrain station with a sign that read, "Chuck the Chucks."
Animal rights activist Jessica Scott-Reid of Winnipeg said the chuckwagon races should be banned as a step toward totally eliminating all forms of entertainment involving animals.
That could be done. All forms of entertainment involving animals could be eliminated from the Stampede.
But then it wouldn't be the Stampede. It would lose what makes it unique. It would simply be another fair — no different than the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto or the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver.
It would perhaps still attract tourists, but not the hordes it gets now from across North America or the world. They could go to lots of other fairs closer to home and see much the same exhibits.
We'd be pulling out yet another leg of the Calgary economy, still reeling from the 2014 downturn in oil prices and the battle to build more pipelines.
The same goes for countless smaller versions of the Stampede in other hard-hit small communities across the Prairies.
And the animal rights activists' jobs would still not be done in my opinion.
I note that the 2019 PNE includes jousting on horses. What a nasty, cruel use of innocent horses. What did they do to deserve that? They could get hurt. Maybe die -- all to provide entertainment for humans.
What about those who fish for salmon off the B.C. coast and in its rivers and streams for example. Does that not inflict cruelty — not to mention death — on innocent fish in those cases?
