Join IDA and SHARK in the Battle Against Rodeo Cruelty

IDA has teamed up with national animal protection organization Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) to expose rodeo's egregious animal welfare violations and call on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) to enforce their own regulations. We kicked off our joint campaign with a press conference at which IDA founder and President Dr. Elliot M. Katz introduced video footage that SHARK recently took of PRCA-sanctioned events documenting numerous violations of the PRCA's own animal welfare rules. Furthermore, the video provides evidence that these violations took place in plain sight of many rodeo contestants and judges, as well as PRCA Administrator Jim Nichols and Commissioner Troy Ellerman. SHARK and IDA join Commissioner Ellerman in calling on Judge James Roeder (Ret.), Head of PRCA Grievance Oversight, to "return some integrity to the system, and clean up the good-old-boy network," by ensuring that violations are taken seriously. 

As a central part of our campaign against rodeos, we are also targeting Starbucks Coffee for sponsoring these cruel competitions in which many animals are injured and killed every year. When SHARK first asked Starbucks why the company had placed an ad in the 2005 Cheyenne Frontier Days Souvenir Program, they claimed that they didn't know anything about such an ad and that SHARK was probably wrong. They even told concerned consumers who called their Customer Relations line that Starbucks does not sponsor sporting events, and therefore couldn't have taken an ad out in a rodeo program. After SHARK showed them the ad, Starbucks spun their story to say they are proud to support local "festivals," and implied that this was an isolated incident. However, we have discovered that Starbucks has also sponsored other rodeos as well, including the Miss Rodeo Washington, the Belton Rodeo in Texas and the American Royal Rodeo in Kansas City, Mo.

Major corporate benefactors like Starbucks are essential to the rodeo's survival: without them, this abusive "sport" wouldn't be able to make enough money to turn a profit. The PCRA's Belton Rodeo made this very clear in their special "thank you" to their sponsors (including Starbucks) when they said, "It is because of you that we are able to continue this event that impacts everyone's heart and pocket books in this community." Likewise, one hand washes the other in the corporate sponsorship game, as companies that pay for rodeos do so in hopes that audience members will purchase their products. IDA and SHARK aim to prove Starbucks dead wrong for thinking that subsidizing rodeos will work in their financial favor. Please join us in telling the company what a bitter taste their sponsorship of animal cruelty has left in consumers' mouths. 

What You Can Do:

• Tell Starbucks to immediately end their support for rodeos now and forever, and let them know you'll avoid their shops by purchasing coffee from one of their many competitors until they do the right thing. You can contact the company by phone, email, fax or postal mail.
  
  Starbucks Retail Customer Relations
  (800) 235-2883, Press 0 
  Monday - Friday, 5:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (PST)
  Saturday & Sunday, 6:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. (PST)
  
  To email Starbucks, visit the comment page on their website: www.starbucks.com/customer/contact_forms.asp?nav=3f 
  
  Please write, call and fax Starbucks' CEO:
  
  Starbucks Corp. 
  Attn: Mr. Jim Donald, CEO
  P.O. Box 3717
  Seattle WA 98124
  Tel: (206) 447-1575
  Fax: (206) 447-0828
  
  
  
• Leaflet outside of your local Starbucks to let their customers know that the company promotes cruelty to animals. Download and print SHARK's "Buck Starbucks" flyer, which is perfect for handing out to passersby at your neighborhood Starbucks and politely educating the management. Use Starbucks' Store Locator to find the Starbucks nearest you.
  
  
• Sign the online petition urging Starbuck's CEO Jim Donald to end the company's rodeo sponsorship.
  
  
• Visit www.rodeocruelty.com to learn more about SHARK's efforts to expose the cruelty behind rodeos and to see graphic photos from their investigation of the 2005 Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyo., which was in part sponsored by Starbucks. 

• www.BuckStarbucks.com