PETA Statement: Beutler and Son Horse Deaths

For Immediate Release:
August 29, 2024

Contact:
Maddy Missett 202-483-7382

Up to 70 horses, including mothers of days-old foals, have reportedly died at Beutler and Son Rodeo Company as a result of eating contaminated feed. The company has long been providing animals—including horses, bulls, cows, and calves—to rodeos across the country, and co-owner Bennie Beutler told media yesterday that the company will be “back to rodeoing” as soon as this weekend. Below, please find a statement from PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman:

Trucking horses, cows, and calves as young as 4 months old around the country to be terrorized by grown men playing cowboy is inarguably inhumane, and no one who cares about animals would ever do it or promote it. These horses’ deaths should lead the Beutler and Son Rodeo Company to change course, leaving this animal-exploiting business in the dust—and meanwhile, PETA urges everyone to steer clear of rodeos as if lives depend on it, because they do.

Rodeo participants have been documented choking calves and twisting their necks while slamming them onto the ground, injecting bulls with steroids to induce an aggressive response to harassment, using sharp spurs to make horses buck, and zapping horses and cows with electric “hotshots” so that the animals will charge out of a chute in a state of panic. The federal Animal Welfare Act offers no protection to animals used in rodeos—which have been denounced by every national animal protection group—and some states even exclude them from anti-cruelty statutes.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.