“Chicken Scramble” Report

Originally Posted: July 24, 2013

“Chicken Scramble” Report

FROM United Poultry Concerns (UPC)

ACTION

Call or email the Riding Club and urge them to cancel the Animal Scramble permanently. Politely request a reply:

Kelli Fisher, President
Cottage Grove Riding Club
PO Box 485
Cottage Grove, OR 97424
541-767-2472
www.cottagegroveridingclub.com
online contact form: http://www.cottagegroveridingclub.com/ContactUs.html

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

For background information, also read Animal Scramble Organizers Switch from Rabbits to Chickens!

Earlier this month we published an Action Alert on the Cottage Grove Riding Club’s annual “Animal Scramble,” in Oregon, an activity included in the Cottage Grove Rodeo in which children are taught to chase down and grab small, terrified animals released on an open field for this purpose. This year, July 12-13, instead of rabbits, the “scramble” organizer reportedly chose chickens. See www.upc-online.org/entertainment.

Amanda Schemkes of Action for Animals sent UPC the following report on their protest demonstration against the “Chicken Scramble”:

The demonstration went fine. We had about a dozen people there, and protested at the rodeo entrance, so everyone who was going in saw us. The rodeo staff tried to tell us to leave, but we had a lawyer with us and they backed down when she talked to them about our right to protest on public spaces.

The local Cottage Grove newspaper sent someone out to interview me, but he was not sympathetic to our cause and I found him difficult to talk with. But the Eugene ABC news station also sent someone out to do a news story, and he was much more pleasant. He filmed part of the story inside, and then did a good interview with me.

He told me the rodeo staff told him they were canceling the animal scramble, but I wondered if they meant they had just stopped using rabbits for it.* The rodeo attendees were not very friendly towards us, but there were a lot of kids going in with their parents who were watching us carefully, and I hope that our message reached those kids.

Thank you for helping to promote the protest. People there told me they attended the protest because of the email Alert you sent out.

–Amanda Schemkes

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Thank you for everything you do for animals!

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