State Fair rodeo promoters have pledged to stop using electric prods to rile up the livestock in response to complaints from animal rights activists.
Defending Farm Animals Inc. has been distributing videotape of bulls being shocked in their chutes with hand-held prods at the fair last year. Steve Pooch, the fair's assistant manager, saw the video on a Las Vegas television station.
He promptly contacted Bob Barnes, whose Iowa rodeo company has produced the rodeo at the fairgrounds Coliseum for more than 30 years. Barnes' current rodeo started Wednesday night and continues at 7 p.m. tonight and Friday.
"The images we saw on the video were not good, and I told Bob we had some concerns, and he agreed to eliminate the use of the prods as a way of getting the animals ready to go out of the chutes," Pooch said.
Barnes, 70, questioned the authenticity of the activists' videos, but promised: "There will be no prods used in any way at the Minnesota State Fair."
The Denver-based Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association prohibits shocking livestock during events, but allows limited use of prods to move animals if the jolts are administered to animals' hips and shoulders.
"I've been in the rodeo business for 50 years, and we take awfully good care of our stock," Barnes said. "This is the first time we've had any major problems."
Julie Derby, the Minneapolis-based director of Defending Farm Animals, said the group expects about 20 people tonight to protest what they consider the rodeo's cruelty toward animals. The vigil is expected to be held on Snelling Avenue just outside the fairgrounds.
