Tickets are now on sale for the 103rd Rowell Ranch Pro Rodeo set for May 16-18. One of the nation’s oldest rodeos takes place at Rowell Rodeo Park off Highway 580 between Hayward/Castro Valley and Dublin.
The Rowell Ranch Pro Rodeo is a longstanding community event that brings friends and neighbors together to celebrate the region’s ranching, equestrian and cultural heritage. Festivities leading up to the historic rodeo kicked off on Saturday, May 10, with the return of the Rodeo Parade along Castro Valley Boulevard.
Fans can look for events throughout the remainder of the week leading up to the rodeo, including the Cecil Jones Team Roping Cowboy Challenge on Wednesday, May 14; the Cowgirl Picnic on Thursday, May 15 and the Rockin’ Bull Bash on Friday, May 16.
Two days of professional rodeo action will take place Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18, along with the BBQ and dance on Saturday, and daily Cowboy Experience event Saturday and Sunday.
“This rodeo has been taking place for more than 100 years and nothing excites us more than giving back to our community and introducing this longstanding event to new audiences young and old,” said Russ Fields, president of the Rowell Ranch Rodeo Committee.
Purchase tickets at rowellranchrodeo.com, at Rowell’s Saddlery at 3473 Castro Valley Boulevard or at the gate on the day of the rodeo.
“Do animals feel fear? Nyaah, they don’t feel fear. They’re an ANIMAL!” (–Russ Fields, rancher and chair, Rowell Ranch Rodeo Committee, in a 5/19/18 KGO-TV Channel 7 news segment, San Francisco)
“If it gets to the point where people think rodeo is inhumane or cruel, they quit coming, and then we’re out of business.” (–Tom Hirsig, CEO, Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, in the July 27, 2018 WYOMING TRIBUNE EAGLE)
Nearly every animal welfare organization on Earth condemns rodeo due to its inherent cruelty. Just imagine the public outcry if pet dogs were substituted for the terrified roping calves, and mere babies yet. Rodeo is not a “sport”–it’s mostly hype, a macho exercise in DOMINATION. It needs to end. The United Kingdom outlawed all or rodeos back in 1934. Can the U.S. be far behind?
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Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
“Yeah, I accidentally killed and injured lots of calves when I was learning. I mean, I plain roped their heads off.” (in “The mud, the blood & the poop,” by PRCA reporter Gavin Ehringer, Colorado Springs Independent, August 19, 2004).
There are farm animal sanctuaries all over the country–indeed, all over the world.
At these communities, thousands of people visit, spend time with, hold, talk to, and peacefully
experience the wonderful farm animals who have been rescued. These animals are loved
and cared for and protected and valued for who they are.
Rodeos attract people who view these same animals as objects to be chased, thrown down,
climbed over, tied up, and as sources of sadistic entertainment. They have no problem with hurting these animals and getting a financial reward for hurting them. Some people enjoy watching this.
There are all kinds of people in this world with different values and different capacities for empathy and compassion.
And this, from Cesar Chavez:
“Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and RODEOS [emphasis added] are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.” (–Cesar Chavez,
in a 12/26/90 letter to ACTION FOR ANIMALS, Oakland)
Words to live by.
And this, from Linda Middlesworth:
Just because this rodeo is 100 years old it just means you have allowed 100 years of extreme cruelty to innocent, terrified animals who deserve to be with their families and friends! How would you like to be in their place or have your dog being harmed like they are?
Stop this inhumane animal abuse. Find your heart for them instead of your pocketbook. You will feel much better about yourselves if you start protecting animals.
It’s sick and twisted that in 2025, this cruel spectacle continues. Tormenting animals for “fun” in the rodeo is condemned by anyone with a conscience.
Display ad, today’s EAST BAY TIMES (Local Section, p. 2) –
https://webmail.mcn.org/webmail/?_task=mail&_frame=1&_mbox=INBOX&_uid=297500&_part=2&_action=get&_extwin=1
Dr. Robert Bay from Colorado autopsied roping calves and found hemorrhages, torn muscles, torn ligaments, damage to the trachea, damage to the throat and damage to the thyroid. These calves never get a chance to heal before they are used again. Meat inspectors including Drs. Haber and Fetzner who processed rodeo animals found broken bones, ruptured internal organs, massive amounts of blood in the abdomen from ruptured blood vessels and damage to the ligamentum nuchae that holds the neck to the rest of the spinal column.
Dr. C. G. Haber, a veterinarian with thirty years of experience as a USDA meat inspector, stated “The rodeo folks send their animals to the packing houses where I have seen cattle so extensively bruised that the only areas in which the skin was attached was the head, neck, legs, and belly. I have seen animals with six to eight ribs broken from the spine and at times puncturing the lungs. I have seen as much as two and three gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin.”
Animals and humans share the same pain and fear centers in the brain. The fear center is the amygdala. The pain centers are the pre-frontal cortex and the hypothalamus. Animals feel pain and fear the same as humans!
As a former state criminal lawyer, we prosecutors have all had cases where criminals have abused and tortured animals before abusing or killing humans. What are we teaching our children when we cheer when a calf roper knocks down and drags by the neck a bawling calf? Kids cry at rodeos. Time to end animal abuse at rodeos.