‘Bandera Ham Rodeo: Not Worth Spit’ Billboards Rejected

PETA Ad Targeting Pig-Tormenting Event Blocked by Local Advertisers

For Immediate Release:
February 26, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

In advance of the Bandera Ham Rodeo, PETA tried to place billboards featuring an image of a screaming pig used in a previous Bandera wild-pig chase, in which people terrorize frightened young pigs—but local outdoor advertisers are refusing to run the ad. Similar ads calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to end wild-pig chases were blocked in Austin, leading PETA to run the image as a mobile billboard circling the Texas Governor’s Mansion, governor’s office, and Capitol earlier this month.

“Texans have a right to know that the Bandera Ham Rodeo leaves young pigs injured, bloodied, and terrified,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA will keep speaking up and urging kind people to stay away from these cruel spectacles until organizers agree to end them.”

Last week, PETA issued a warning about the zoonotic disease potential of the Bandera Ham Rodeo, as feral hogs can carry brucellosis and other diseases that can be transmitted to human beings through contact with infected animals and their blood, feces, and urine. During these events, the animals are chased and tackled, leaving them bloodied and causing them to relieve themselves in fear.

A previous PETA tip to the Texas Animal Health Commission prompted an investigation and a subsequent warning against the event’s organizers, Nicky Barron and the Bandera Wranglers, for illegally keeping feral pigs without a permit at last year’s event.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.