Bull riding is a sport that has always carried tantamount risks to human life. While the riders are at constant risk from the angry animal itself, unfortunate scenarios can also arise out of the event, putting the lives of audience members in danger. An incident akin to that happened recently in Western Australia after a bull escaped from its enclosure and caused a commotion. While the scenes there were pretty scary, they eventually led to the death of a 5-year-old girl. However, the bull didn’t directly kill her. This garnered attention for all the wrong reasons and angered animal rights activists. They are now calling for stricter measures towards such events.

5-year-old Aubrey was visiting the Kununurra Rodeo, approximately 45 km away from the Northern Territory of Australia. As the bull escaped, the crowd got agitated and Aubrey died as a result of a trample. Now there are calls to ban such events in the future.

How a bull riding event turned into a nightmare for the crowd

It was the Top End Mustering Rodeo at Kununurra in Western Australia, and suddenly the bull had escaped. Within moments there was chaos at the venue. The people who were dancing before the bull got away were now in a frantic state, trying to escape the premises. Concerned about their safety, they scrambled and climbed out the walls to escape the danger. This created the furore.

Aubrey was trampled a couple of times by the frantic spectators and was found lying unconscious by her mother, Natalie Ripps. Mrs. Ripps was shaken to her very core. Around 15 more people were injured in the incident and this created all the negative attention and attracted the animal rights activists to call for a ban.

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Gayle D’Arcy from Animal Liberation Queensland told Yahoo News Australia, “It seemed to me that he was simply trying to make his way to the exit as quickly as possible”. She was simply pointing out that the “rampaging bull charging at the crowd” is extremely misleading. D’Arcy, who has been fighting for a long time to ban bull riding and rodeo events, made that distinction because she believed that this incident, like many others, is being attempted to be written off as the animal losing control and attacking the crowd.

Why animal rights activists can’t tolerate such events anymore

In reality, incidents like these are mainly fear and panic-driven. She continued, “Nearly every [animal-related] event I would classify as fear-based. So without them being stressed, they don’t exhibit the behaviors that are needed for the events to take place”.

Gayle D’Arcy was insisting on the fact that humans force these bulls to bend to their will, causing such mental trauma in them that they feel the need to lash out. And it is all for a recreational event. Even Rodeo rider Lance Bedford Jr told ABC that “bulls don’t like to stand too long in the chute” and that it was the reason for it “busting through the gate”. Very often, riders get terribly hurt, just like Caleb Robinson, who broke his legs after a horrifying turn on a bull in 2012.

As animals such as these bulls show clear signs of distress and trauma at such human-recreation events, and also constantly endanger human lives, animal rights activists like Gayle D’Arcy call for the governments to put a complete ban on such events forever.

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