PETA Thanks Lake Elsinore for Rejecting Cruel, Dangerous Bull Run
For Immediate Release:
November 8, 2013
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Lake Elsinore, Calif. — Lake Elsinore city leaders will be receiving flowers and a box of vegan chocolates from PETA, thanks to their decision to deny a permit to hold The Great Bull Run at Lake Elsinore Motorsports Park in March 2014. City Manager Grant Yates believes that participants would be at a high risk for injury. His concerns are justified: Two people were hospitalized, including one man who was trampled, following a similar event in Virginia in August.
“Bull runs mean collisions, falls, broken legs, trampling, and other potentially fatal outcomes for everyone involved, from the bulls to the bystanders,” says PETA Foundation Director Delcianna Winders. “PETA commends Lake Elsinore for recognizing these risks and sending this cruel outfit packing.”
The Great Bull Run is meant to mimic the notoriously cruel Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. After having been loaded onto trucks, hauled across potentially hundreds of miles, and forced into an arena filled with hundreds of screaming, often intoxicated people, the panicked bulls, chased by lasso-wielding riders on horseback, will bolt out of the pen after the starting gate opens in a state of confusion and terror. As they rush through the chute, they can crash into the barriers, fall and break their legs, or collide with and injure one another.
The denial of a permit to hold the barbaric bull run isn’t the first time that Lake Elsinore has taken action to protect animals. Last December, following a two-month PETA investigation, city officials worked with PETA and other animal-protection groups to get help for more than 16,000 rodents and reptiles at the now-defunct Lake Elsinore–based Global Captive Breeders, LLC (GCB). At GCB, animals were forced to live amid their own accumulated waste, routinely drowned because of faulty equipment, bludgeoned, slammed against hard surfaces, and tossed—sometimes alive—into trash cans. PETA’s investigation led to the largest seizure of rats in U.S. history and the largest-ever seizure of animals in California. In July, the owner and the manager of GCB were each arrested and charged with 106 counts of felony cruelty to animals.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
