SAN DIEGO (KGTV — Emotions filled the room as the city of San Diego's Land Use and Housing Committee discussed Item 3 on the agenda: animal welfare regulations within rodeos.
"There is no such thing as a humane rodeo," says Jan Fogel, a local animal rights activists. "It can't be done without cruelty, injury and so on, and you can't monitor it very well either."
While an outright ban on rodeos wasn't likely in the near future, new proposals were unveiled aimed at doing away with popular activities like calf roping, team roping, and steer wrestling which were met with pushback from those who have practiced these for years.
"it would definitely weaken the sport," says Filemon Jara, a local who grew up around these types of events and practices all his life.
Jara says it would change the dynamic of the sport.
"It's almost like a baseball player being asked to hit a ball without a bat."
During the meeting the San Diego Humane Society also proposed to have a licensed and qualified veteraniarian on-site at these events as well as a closer look at these animals traveling. Several signs filled the first few rows in the crowd, an effort to make their stance known. Some who say it's to save what they call *tradition, while others who say they're looking to save animals' lives.
"They think it's tradition and they think there's revenue to be made out of it," says Fogel. "It's all it's abuse and you know there's no way to have a rodeo without that."
But Jara disagrees.
"To say that it's just we're brutal savages and we're out to injure animals is completely not the reality," he explains. "The biggest misconception is that we're animal abusers that we intentionally go and hurt the animals and that's not at all what we're trying to do."
No vote was planned Thursday … but it now opens the discussion further to someday finding common ground.
"They're not just trophy pets, they're part of our sport, so we definitely want to look after them. We don't want people to know that that that's part of our intent from the beginning."
