When Tommy Lee hits the stage tonight in Calgary, Alberta, there may be a special guest in the audience to watch him drum upside down: Alison Redford, the premier of Alberta. Tommy invited her to the Mötley Crüe concert so that she could experience a "really wild show" that doesn't involve injuring and killing animals. He hopes to convince the premier to use her influence to put a stop to the deadly chuckwagon races at the annual Calgary Stampede. 

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In the races, teams of horses are made to pull "pioneer wagons" around a track at breakneck speeds. They often collide with each other or the wagons, and more than a dozen horses have died in the event since 2009. Even after Calgary Stampede officials passed new rules last year that were intended to make the races safer for horses, three horses still sustained crippling injuries and had to be euthanized. Tommy is all for having a wild and crazy time but not when animals have to die for it.

What You Can Do

Join Tommy Lee in asking Redford to put the brakes on the chuckwagon races and save horses' lives. 

What better way to spend your birthday than being with the people you love, eating great food, and doing something good for animals! That's exactly how Carey Hart celebrated—with wife Pink and a vegan meal at San Francisco eatery Prospect. 

Beantown is a great place to be vegan, too, as Tobey Maguire confirmed while munching on nondairy sweets at vegan ice cream shop FoMu. 

Vegetarian Colbie Caillat is getting bubbly over cruelty-free skincare. The singer is the new face of Lily.B, an all-natural product line.

And beauty Pamela Anderson networked for animals on Twitter this week (as she does every week) asking her followers to help end the cruelty of the Calgary Stampede.

Bucking ropes are used to enrage animals in rodeos. The rope is tightly cinched around the animals’ abdomens, which causes them to buck vigorously to try to rid themselves of the torment.
Ashley Bayles|cc by 2.0

A host of other celebs joined Pam in staying atwitter for animals:

Mariah Carey is rumored to be considering joining American Idol and bringing the show a much-needed breath of fur-free air. Years ago, when one of Mariah's fans, who clearly had more money than taste, sent her a pair of fur coats, she promptly donated the offending skins to PETA.

Fur is running out of places to hide, as Russell Simmons banned it from his news and lifestyle website, GlobalGrind. 

To keep up with what all your favorite stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.

Things got rockin' at our "Summer Is No Vacation for Animals on Fur Farms" demonstration in Portland, Maine, when Gavin Rossdale and his son Kingston stopped by:

Gavin thanked the demonstrators for being there and mentioned that he and his fur-free wife, Gwen Stefani, are teaching their children to be kind to animals.

Chad Ochocinco (whose sizzling PETA anti-fur ad might be part of the reason why he's considered "the ultimate catch") tied the knot last weekend with fiancée Evelyn Lozada. So PETA sent the happy couple—what else?—an elegant faux-fur throw from Donna Salyers' Fabulous-Furs. 

Fur foe Lea Michele is being recognized for her animal activism. She earned a 2012 Do Something Award nomination for her work with PETA to shut down New York City's cruel horse-drawn carriage industry. Be sure to cast your vote here! 

PETA pals are snagging nominations right and left this week. Eva Mendes, Penélope Cruz, Benicio Del Toro, Roselyn Sanchez, Martin Sheen, and Constance Marie are all nominated for 2012 National Council of La Raza ALMA Awards. 

And vegetarian wrestler Austin Aries just claimed the title of TNA World Heavyweight Champion.

When 11-time Olympic medal winner Natalie Coughlin heads to London, she'll have some new reading material for the plane. PETA sent the swimmer vegan cookbooks and a vegetarian/vegan starter kit to help her maintain her nearly 100 percent vegetarian diet on the road.

NFL star Arian Foster is hopping on the vegan-athlete bandwagon. His inspiring tweets were some of the best in the Twitterverse this week:

Dominic Monaghan also took to Twitter to defend animals this week, calling the show Swamp People, which glorifies the killing of alligators, "death entertainment" that "continues to demonize reptiles as monsters and animals that are okay to torture and kill." He then vowed, "I'm gonna stop them."

Bob Barker is ready to put a stop to the Calgary Stampede. Everyone's favorite game show host said of the cruel 10-day rodeo festival, in which three horses have already died this year, "I would like very much to see them celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede by saying that is enough animal cruelty. Let's wind it up and close it down."

To keep up with what the stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.

The always remarkable Bob Barker has sent urgent letters to the major sponsors of the cruel Calgary Stampede encouraging them to take PETA's advice and end their support of the deadly event.

The Price Is Too High

Bob leapt into action after The Price Is Right—the game show he hosted for 35 years—began giving away prize packages that contained trips to the Stampede and to SeaWorld. Shortly afterward, Bob contacted the program's producers to ask them to stop promoting cruel animal spectacles on the show.

Now Bob has gone the extra mile by writing to some of the main companies that sponsor the Stampede—including Bell Canada, General Motors of Canada Limited, and Anheuser-Busch International—detailing the kinds of animal suffering that their money will be funding and urging them to withdraw their financial backing from the event.

Stampeding Toward Disaster

Rodeos are always catastrophic for animals, but the Calgary Stampede is among the worst since they allow the use of barbaric devices that are illegal in many other countries, including electric prods and bucking straps (which are tightened around the animals' groins) in order to irritate and enrage the animals.

During last year's stampede, one horse had to be euthanized after breaking a leg on the very first day, and the previous year's event cost six horses their lives. And that's on top of the excruciating injuries—including broken bones, punctured lungs, internal bleeding and bruising, and torn tendons, ligaments, and muscles—suffered by many of the surviving animals.

Calgary Reviews | cc by 2.0

No More Bucking Cruelty

As Bob tells the Stampede sponsors, "Surely no one would be cheering a nine-day display of violence if the terrified horses and calves were cats and dogs. I hope you will agree that no animal deserves to suffer like this in the name of a tradition that should have died out with the covered wagon's last ride."

How You Can Help These Horses

Please join PETA and Bob Barker in telling the producer of The Price Is Right never again to offer trips to SeaWorld or the Calgary Stampede as prizes.

A horse named Check Mate was euthanized this past weekend after suffering a broken back and collapsing during a saddle bronc riding event at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in Wyoming.
 

 
In saddle bronc riding events, horses are made to buck wildly through the use of painful "bucking straps" cinched tightly around the animals' abdomens. Horses are also often shocked with electric prods and have spurs stabbed into their sides.

Check Mate isn't alone—horses, bulls, and calves are killed every year in cruel rodeo events. Earlier this month, two horses died after suffering broken legs during chuckwagon races in the Calgary Stampede, which was attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Strict restrictions have been implemented on the use of electric prods, flank straps, and spurs in Rhode Island; Leestown, Virginia; and Pittsburgh, effectively banning rodeos. In addition, flank straps have been banned in Ohio; rodeos have been banned completely in Pasadena, California, and Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Rhode Island and California have laws requiring a veterinarian to be present on site at rodeos. PETA offers a list of rodeo ordinances in every state that can be used to protest rodeos and file complaints about witnessed abuses.

 
Written by Michelle Sherrow

Resolute / CC by 3.0

Update: Six horses died during this year's Calgary Stampede. Please take action and ask the Stampede sponsors to disassociate themselves from the event.

As if Canada's annual seal massacre isn't enough, the Calgary Stampede adds to the country's annual death toll. This year it's rodeo business as usual—five horses have already died and the event doesn't end until Sunday.

A fifth horse died yesterday 40 minutes after being forced to participate in the chuckwagon races. These are the Stampede's deadliest events, in which teams of four horses pull old-fashioned "pioneer" wagons around a track at breakneck speed—and often break their bodies as a result. In previous years, we've written to all the sponsors of these endurance races asking them to pull the plug, and we've called upon the chief crown prosecutor to file cruelty-to-animals charges. The Humane Society of Canada has also called for a boycott of the event. So far, except for the death rattle of the horses and the yahooing of the crowd, silence!

Please get everyone you know to tell those who are still sponsoring the Calgary Stampede that the chuckwagon races must be canceled permanently.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor