SHARK yanks Hooved Animal Humane Society’s tail over charreada

Hooved Animal Humane Society belatedly issues public statement against steer-tailing and other charreada animal abuse

GENEVA,  Illinois––Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK] founder Steve Hindi and team spent Saturday,  April 13,  2024 frustratedly drone videotaping yet another charreada hosted by Gracie Robles at her Rancho Los Zacatecanos in Irene,  Illinois.

Irene is an unincorporated hamlet in southern Boone County,  with a postal address in Kirkland,  DeKalb County––a fact which tends to confuse law enforcement over jurisdictions.

This does not seem to be a factor,  however,  in persistent non-enforcement of Illinois anti-cruelty legislation at the Rancho Los Zacatecanos charreadas.

Horse-tripping

Robles is among the charreada promoters whose events in 2022 brought the audience complaints to Showing Animals Respect & Kindness that rekindled Hindi’s attention to charreada,  especially steer-tailing.

Twenty-five years earlier,  in 1996, SHARK video helped to persuade the Illinois legislature to ban horse-tripping,  or manganas,  another staple event of traditional charreada rodeos.

After that campaign,  though,  Hindi and SHARK focused on American-style rodeo,  cockfighting,  dogfighting,  and American corporate economic support of bullfighting,  unaware,  Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7,  of the extreme violence in steer-tailing.

Tail-degloving

Some videos posted to social media to promote the Rancho Los Zacatecanos charreadas actually show tail deglovings,  in which riders trying to throw down running steers by their tails strip the steers’ tails of hair and skin.

Deglovings are central to the humane argument for banning steer-tailing.

Also of concern are broken legs and horns often suffered when the steers hit the ground,  lack of veterinary attention and/or prompt euthanasia for injured steers and horses,  and the frequent charreada practice of running steers through the chutes to be thrown by the tail as often as two dozen times in an afternoon.

72 hours of verification work

Hindi in the two weeks preceding the April 13,  2024 Rancho Los Zacatecanos charreada spent 72 hours,  he told ANIMALS 24-7,  watching slowed-down video of charreada steer-tailing to identify individual steers by their markings and then document exactly how often many of them were run.

On April 13,  2024,  Hindi said,  Showing Animals Respect & Kindness videotaped “all the usual,”  including two deglovings and multiple other injuries to steers,  as well as excessive repeated use of steers.

A veterinarian appeared in response to one injury,  Hindi said,  but not in response to other injuries occurring later in the day.

Bib rule ignored

A new Boone County regulation requires charreada participants to wear numbered bibs on their backs,  so that violators of rules can be identified,  but Hindi observed that many participants either did not wear their bibs or pinned them to their shirts in such a manner as to conceal the numbers.

No one appeared to say or do a thing to enforce the bib rule.

Hindi on April 14,  2023 was vocally exasperated with the Boone County board of commissioners for not banning steer-tailing outright and for not enforcing the bib rule,  and with the Boone County sheriff’s department for not enforcing Illinois humane laws at charreadas.

Hindi vs. Hooved Animal Humane Society

But Hindi was even more exasperated with the Hooved Animal Humane Society,  of Woodstock,  in neighboring McHenry County,  for allegedly not saying or doing a thing––at least not in a visible manner––about charreada mayhem to hoofed animals,  practiced with impunity for decades at multiple locations within an hour’s drive or less of the Hooved Animal Humane Society headquarters.

Hindi had clashed before with the Hooved Animal Humane Society,  which raises nearly $1 million per year,  more than Showing Animals Respect & Kindness has raised in any three recent years combined.

As of 2022,  according to IRS Form 990,  the Hooved Animal Humane Society spent $505,000 on actual horse care and rescue,  plus $50,000 on legislative advocacy.

Previous clashes were with long-departed founder

Donna Ewing,  who founded the Hooved Animal Humane Society in 1971,  held annual fundraising pig roasts,  ignoring that pigs are hooved animals.

Ewing defended rodeo use as an appropriate destination for wild horses even after Hindi and other humane investigators documented extensive abuse of rodeo horses.

Ewing finally spoke out against horse-tripping at charreadas after Hindi documented it,  then claimed credit for getting it banned by the Illinois legislature in 1996 without acknowledging the SHARK role.

The Hooved Animal Humane Society board fired Ewing and her daughter Ronda in June 2001,  following prolonged friction between the Ewings and the board over alleged mismanagement and failure to designate a successor.

Ewing testified for horse slaughter

Ewing then founded a rival organization called the Hooved Animal Rescue & Protection Society.

Under that banner,  Ewing on November 18,  2003 testified to an executive committee hearing of the Illinois House of Representatives that horse slaughter for human consumption should not be banned.

Ewing defended horse slaughter as an appropriate destination,  in her view,  for surplus wild horses removed from public lands,  and for aged or injured horses.

Hindi obtained and disclosed the tape on January 23,  2004.

“Humane Farming Association has been our greatest ally”

Twenty years later,  Hindi on April 10, 2024 complained in the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness electronic newsletter that the SHARK campaign against charreada has been ongoing “for several years now,  with little to no help from outside groups except for the California-based Humane Farming Association.

“The Humane Farming Association has been our greatest ally when it comes to these events, even though the group is based in California!” Hindi wrote.

“Meanwhile, there is another group that one would think would be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with us,  but that is not the case.

“Contact the Hooved Animal Humane Society,”  Hindi asked,  “and ask them when they will start helping the hooved animals right at their front doors.”

Hooved Animal Humane Society executive director takes offense

Hooved Animal Humane Society executive director Cynthia Glensgard took immediate offense.  Previously a three-year Hooved Animal Humane Society volunteer,  Glensgard was promoted to her present position in 2022,  just as the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness campaign against steer-tailing and other charreada animal abuse heated up.

“Our organizations are supposed to be working together,”  Glensgard told Hindi,  “and your most recent email is definitely not one supporting a team approach.”

The Hooved Animal Humane Society “takes a legislative approach to matters,”  Glensgard said.

This would normally mean mobilizing voters to apply pressure to elected representatives,  something the Hooved Animal Humane Society has yet to do concerning charreada.

Two 2022 emails are sole public record

“I have personally spoken with the head of animal control in both McHenry County and Boone County,”  Glensgard continued,  “providing suggestions on wording for permitting, etc.  I have personally worked with an attorney for these suggestions.  I have personally sent emails and had follow-up phone calls.  I will attach screenshots of a couple of my first emails,”  both sent on October 20,  2022.

These two emails as of April 10,  2024 constituted the entire public record of Hooved Animal Humane Society activity pertaining to charreada,  either in Boone County or elsewhere,  so far as ANIMALS 24-7 has been able to determine.

Glensgard also claimed a Hooved Animal Humane Society representative,  not named,  had attended a recent Boone County board of commissioners meeting.

Criminal charges for alleged horse neglect

“I have personally spoken with the head of the Department of Agriculture on the matter,”  Glensgard said.  “I have other items that I have worked on as well.

“Just so you know,”  Glensgard concluded,  “the Hooved Animal Humane Society is happy to announce that after two years of legal,  HAHS has just secured animal cruelty charges on a case where we impounded five horses.  We still have other criminal charges pending.”

Hindi,  however,  was not impressed.

“Bogus racism charges”

“Back at the beginning of this campaign,”  Hindi recalled,  “a couple years ago,  there were rumblings from the Hooved Animal Humane Society that it was going to do something.  Then the rodeo people started hurling bogus racism charges around,  and that was pretty much the last we heard of HAHS.

“SHARK’s involvement is easy to see,”  Hindi reminded Glensgard.  “We have droned almost all of these events since August 2022,  gathering an enormous amount of hard evidence in the process.  Our documentation has led to criminal charges and court orders to curb some,  but far from all of the abuses.

“We have actively communicated with board members and the state’s attorneys in four counties.  Along with the California-based Humane Farming Association,  we are suing Boone County.

“Detail,  please,  & I will apologize”

“You say you are active on this issue,  so what you are doing? Provide that detail,  please,”  Hindi challenged Glensgard,  “and I will be the first to apologize.”

Hindi sent Glensgard several further thoughts a little over an hour later.

“SHARK has a long history of working with other animal protection organizations,”  Hindi opened.  “That said,  it is not necessary that we are partners so long as we are actually pulling in the same direction.

“My problem is that the voices of organizations like ours must be raised at this point.  Quiet has not worked.  There are those in Boone County who are clearly in the pocket of the rodeo people,”  Hindi charged,  “both on the board and in the state’s attorney’s office.  The state’s attorney is making blatantly false claims to the board.

“One cannot hold a gerbil stomp”

“One example is claiming that because something is not specifically outlawed that makes it legal.  That’s nonsense, as I am certain you know.  One cannot,  for instance, hold a gerbil stomp simply because the law doesn’t say that gerbil stomping is illegal.

“The state’s attorney [for Boone County,  Karla Maville] is allowing new permits to be handed out to locations that have a history of abuse,”  Hindi continued,  “even though she admits that those permits are discretionary,  and can/should be withheld for lack of compliance.  Every single location we have investigated has been out of compliance every single time,  and yet this state’s attorney is handing out more permits to the same violators.

“Make your collective voice heard!”

“We are calling on the Hooved Animal Humane Society to make your collective voice heard because another charreada season is about to begin, and the suffering these animals are enduring is not only indefensible,  but also illegal,”  Hindi said.

“Just last Saturday we shot a rodeo wherein at least a couple of animals were run 24 times in a single day.  Others were run in the high teens.  American rodeo associations run an animal once in a performance,”  Hindi reminded Glensgard.

“Animals with broken legs  and other injuries were left to suffer with no veterinary care,  which is of course illegal.

“Not the Rabbit Rescue Society”

“SHARK has exposed rodeo animal abuse across the country for the last three decades,”  Hindi said,  “but the worst of it turns out to be in our own backyards.  If your organization was called the Rabbit Rescue Society,  this would be somewhat different,  but as the Hooved Animal Humane Society,  I should think this issue would be every bit as compelling to you as us.

“The Boone County Board needs to hear from you,  in no uncertain terms,”  Hindi stipulated. “Your approved humane investigators could be checking these places out.  With our drones, we could be giving them a heads up on what to look for.

“There are any number of ways we could work together, or we could work separately,”  Hindi suggested,  “but if you are making any effort,  the impact has not been felt,  and the lives of rodeo victims are on the line every week.’

Got her goat

Fired back Glensgard,  “Steve,  your false and slanderous e-blast and social posts claimed the Hooved Animal Humane Society has done nothing. These statements jeopardize our organizations’ work and ability to affect positive change for animal welfare.

“You made these claims without any knowledge or an attempt to gain knowledge about what the Hooved Animal Humane Society has done.  You requested proof of actions and proof was given.  Are you going to publicly apologize and rescind your email and post statements?”

“What have you done to move the needle?”

Responded Hindi,  “You are saying that a couple emails from a year and a half ago,  and attendance at a meeting wherein an associate was a silent observer constitutes proof of actions?

“What have you done to move the needle in the last year?  I would love to hear about something real,  and am happy to apologize in that case.  Indulge us,  and I’ll make a donation to the Hooved Animal Humane Society myself.”

Hindi invited Glensgard to attend a Boone County board of commissioners meeting with him that very evening,  which Hindi attended but Glensgard did not,  and to attend or send inspectors to the Rancho Los Zacatecanos charreada on April 13,  2024.

Hooved Animal Humane Society representatives were not in evidence there,  either.

Hooved Animal Humane Society statement

“While the Hooved Animal Humane Society has been working on this horrific situation in our own way,”  Glensgard emailed to ANIMALS 24-7 while the Boone County board of commissioners meeting was in progress,  “it would be beneficial for the animals if the organization made a public statement of condemnation.

“Please feel free to share the following statement:

“The Hooved Animal Humane Society condemns any action or treatment of animals that results in their pain and suffering.  This statement includes steer-tailing,  running animals to exhaustion,  beating them,  and not providing vet care.  We find these acts to be cruel and inhumane.”

The Hooved Animal Humane Society also posted the statement to Facebook.

“Hooved Animal Humane Society follows up”

Whether the statement,  issued on a Friday evening,  has reached any Illinois county commissioners or members of the state legislature,  ANIMALS 24-7 does not know,  but either the Hooved Animal Humane Society or Showing Animals Respect & Kindness might make sure they all receive it bright and early on Monday morning.

Glensgard at about the same time demanded to know from Hindi what Showing Animals Respect & Kindness does “for the single animal who is being beaten,  starved,  and left with no medical or farrier care?

“I can tell you that the Hooved Animal Humane Society follows up on reports,  and we continue to go back to ensure the animal or animals are receiving care,”  Glensgard said.

“Our investigators take their lives in their hands”

“If we find that the situation is not resolved,  we take steps to remove the animal,  rehabilitate the animal,  and pursue civil and criminal charges.

“Our investigators take their lives into their own hands when they follow up on these animals,”  Glensgard said.  “What is SHARK doing for the single animal or the multiple animals left alone to starve and suffer?  What is SHARK doing for the animals who are being hoarded?  What is the organization doing to provide care and rehabilitation for animals?  What is the organization’s public statement about the importance and need for this work?”

Prevention vs. remediation

At this point,  probably unknowingly,  Glensgard raised the same issue that American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals founder Henry Bergh raised in 1866,  when he defined the mission of the ASPCA as focusing on prevention of cruelty,  rather than remediation.

There were already animal rescue societies,  Bergh pointed out,  including one in Philadelphia,  founded in 1858,  that in 2024 has five institutional descendants.

Doing animal rescue,  however,  could not prevent cruelty from occurring in the first place.

Therefore the ASPCA during Bergh’s lifetime focused entirely on investigations and law enforcement––much as does Showing Animals Respect & Kindness.

Bergh died in 1888.  Only seven years later did the ASPCA open an animal shelter.

Sheltering as priority compromised the cause

A century after the ASPCA was founded,  the humane cause had refocused almost totally on animal sheltering,  including operating municipal animal control shelters that killed as many as 23 million dogs and cats per year.

Humane societies,  including the Hooved Animal Humane Society,  had done little or nothing effective in decades to confront institutional animal abuse.

Many lent cover to institutional animal users and abusers.  The American Humane Association,  for instance,  purported to monitor and certify rodeos.

The much ignored Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rules are in fact the same rules published by the American Humane Association when it began nominally monitoring rodeos in 1959––a role it continued into the mid-1970s.

Such ethical compromises in the name of ensuring “animal welfare” inspired the rise of the animal rights movement,  focused on prevention rather than cure.

“The abusers won’t let us in”

“We’ve been onsite at more rodeos than I can remember,”  Hindi told Glensgard,  “from New Jersey to California,  and from Minnesota to Texas,  for more than thirty years.  Drones are in use at steer-tailing events in Illinois because the abusers won’t let us in.

“Whether it is one animal,  a thousand or a million,  if we are in a position to help,  we do.

“Our investigators work in dangerous environments on a regular basis,”  Hindi mentioned,  speaking from the perspective of having been injured by cockfighters and pigeon-shooters,  and threated with a gun on multiple occasions,  “because criminals like cockfighters care no more about human life than the life of a chicken.

“Chance for Hooved Animal Humane Society to show what it is made of”

“The steer-tailing issue is an opportunity for the Hooved Animal Humane Society to show what it is made of,”  Hindi challenged.  “There was a time when the Hooved Animal Humane Society had the most approved humane investigators of any Illinois humane group.

“The Boone County Board,  and other boards in the area,  other elected officials,  and the media need to hear from you in a very serious way. Illinois law is being blatantly violated,”  Hindi said,  “and everyone is afraid to deal with it because they’ll be called racists.”

There Glensgard and Hindi found a point of agreement.

“Ready to assist the Sheriff’s Department”

“Your statement about the situations being dangerous is true,”  Glensgard acknowledged.  “You are also correct that the events on private property do not have to let you in.  They also do not have to let the Hooved Animal Humane Society or other approved humane investigators in to conduct an investigation.  As you know, humane investigators are not law enforcement or animal control agents;  they are concerned citizens.

“The Hooved Animal Humane Society is ready to assist the Sheriff’s Department with our hooved animal knowledge and our organization’s facilities should they request it.

Why SHARKS are not “Approved Humane Investigators” under the Illinois Department of Agriculture

“The Hooved Animal Humane Society is a sponsoring organization for concerned citizens who want to protect animals by becoming Approved Humane Investigators through the Department of Agriculture,”  Glensgard mentioned.

“In the first few months of this year alone,  the Hooved Animal Humane Society received over 15 reports that we have addressed in addition to caring for the rescues we have,”  Glensgard said.

Glensgard suggested that Showing Animals Respect & Kindness should obtain Approved Humane Investigators,  apparently unaware that SHARK at one point had three Approved Humane Investigators,  but resigned from the program upon discovering that participation imposed more constraints on investigators that it conferred advantages.

“Animal abuse is not a race issue and should not be a race issue,   and our organization agrees with that statement,”  Glensgard concluded.

Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7,  by telephone while maintaining the SHARK drone fleet,  that he sees no point in further responding.

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