The California Rodeo Salinas is scheduled to start on July 16, yet the rodeo refuses to change its illegal practice of hiding injuries to animals. In December 2014, the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the animal rights group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) against the rodeo for failing to report animal injuries to the state veterinary medical board, as required under California law. ALDF and SHARK accuse the defendants of significantly underreporting the number of animals injured at the California Rodeo Salinas, the largest rodeo in the state and one of the largest in the country.

For the last two years, SHARK has attended the California Rodeo Salinas and videotaped more than forty injuries to animals, including calves limping in pain after being dragged to the ground and a horse with a tennis ball-sized wound on his neck. Expert veterinary assessment of this footage confirms that these injuries required immediate veterinary care and should have been reported. But to mask the inherent dangerousness of rodeo events, California Rodeo Salinas has drastically and chronically underreported animal injuries. The rodeo reported only four out of the forty-one injuries to animals documented by SHARK.

Read More with Video | California Rodeo Salinas Bans Cameras to Prevent Documentation of Animal Cruelty and Death | Graphic TV Commercials Accuse Salinas Rodeo of Animal Cruelty, Ask Viewers Not to Attend | Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) | Showing Animals Respect & Kindness (SHARK) | ShameonSalinas.com

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