MEDIA RELEASE

13 November 2008
 
 
 
City Of Peace Not Bucking Brutlity

Christchurch City Council is being pitted against Auckland City Council in a wrangle over the use and abuse of rodeo animals. Animal advocates say Christchurch is promoted internationally as the City of Peace, but compared with the City of Sails, Christchurch is the City of Brutality.
 
National animal advocacy organisation SAFE is calling on the Christchurch mayor, Bob Parker, to withdraw the council’s support of rodeo events to uphold the city’s zero tolerance of violence and abuse. Christchurch City Council declared Christchurch a Peace City in 2002 in order to promote a more peaceful community.
 
Christchurch will host New Zealand’s only international rodeo this Saturday, an event touted as a star attraction of the council-sponsored New Zealand Cup and Show Week. The rodeo is promoted as “man versus beast in the biggest wild west stand-off ever staged in New Zealand.”
 
Auckland city mayor Hon John Banks QSO supports SAFE’s call for other cities to ban rodeo events. “The gross spectacle of animal torture masquerading as a rodeo would never happen in this city,” says Mr Banks.
 
ACTION: NOON FRIDAY 14 November
SAFE has chartered a small aircraft to fly over Christchurch from noon tomorrow towing a 50-metre banner. The message will read ‘AKL CAN, WE CAN, CCC BAN RODEOS.’ This action will signal the start of a campaign to make Christchurch rodeo free.
 
“The flight path over Christchurch will include passes over the council-sponsored Royal New Zealand Show. This will send a clear message that rodeo cruelty has no place in Christchurch,” says SAFE campaign director Hans Kriek.
 
“Rodeos are a brutal display of people’s dominance and abuse of animals. These animals are forced to endure needless suffering and gross mistreatment, all for the sake of so-called entertainment,” says Mr Kriek.
 
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