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I’ve got some exciting news for you! Well, exciting in the sense that a hideous sport has made an improvement that makes it a bit less hideous: The National Western Stock Show has banned electric prods!
The group SHARK gets a shout-out as big as the wide-open plains for persuading National Western to put an end to the use of the painful shocking device, which is often used on broncos to cause them to bolt from the gate. As you can imagine, frequent exposure to these electric shocks causes the animals considerable physical and mental distress.
The National Western Stock Show has also announced heftier fines for “jerk-downs”—the act of violently jerking a calf backward and roping the calf simultaneously. Competing rodeos have followed suit: Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Greeley Stampede have also banned electric prods. Now, if they’d just replace the broncs with mechanical bulls, we’d be as happy as a hog let loose in the tater patch.
Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky
