![\"Rodeo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-01-08_14-09-39-723-e1736374439566.jpg?ssl=1\")
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<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n SAN DIEGO,\u00a0 SAN FRANCISCO\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Samuel Johnson,\u00a0 author of the first dictionary of the English language,\u00a0 never saw and most likely never even heard of either San Diego or San Francisco,\u00a0 let alone saw or heard about either the San Diego Petco Park rodeo or the Chinatown live market in San Francisco.<\/p>\n This is because Johnson lived from 1709 to 1784;\u00a0 San Diego and San Francisco were founded by Spanish colonists in 1769 and 1776,\u00a0 respectively.<\/p>\n But we do know what Johnson would have thought of both institutions,\u00a0 and of the \u201ccity fathers,\u201d\u00a0 both male and female,\u00a0 who allow rodeo and live market cruelty in the name of culture.<\/p>\n Johnson on August 5,\u00a0 1758 initiated 103 editions of a column he wrote for the London Universal Chronicle<\/em> weekly,\u00a0 among the first English newspapers,\u00a0 with one of the earliest and most vivid condemnations of vivisection published during his 75-year lifespan.<\/p>\n It is no accident that the then-multi-faceted humane movement rose to visibility during Johnson\u2019s career as a vehement journalistic opponent of slavery,\u00a0 defender of Native American rights, \u00a0and advocate for animals,\u00a0 especially cats.<\/p>\n Eighteen years elapsed from Johnson\u2019s denunciation of vivisection until on April 7, \u00a01775 he defined patriotism as \u201cThe last refuge of a scoundrel.\u201d<\/p>\n What Johnson meant by \u201cpatriotism\u201d included any sort of cruelty or injustice perpetuated on the pretext of culture and tradition.<\/p>\n <\/a> Injured horse at the San Diego rodeo.<\/strong><\/em> The second annual San Diego Rodeo at Petco Park,\u00a0 home of the San Diego Padres major league baseball team,\u00a0 is to be held in three installments,\u00a0 on January 10,\u00a0 11,\u00a0 and 12,\u00a0 2025.<\/p>\n The first edition,\u00a0 held over the weekend of January 12-14,\u00a0 2024,\u00a0 featured an opening night incident in which a female rider was thrown from her horse,\u00a0 named Waco Kid, during a so-called \u201cIndigenous Relay Race.\u201d\u00a0 The horse ran full tilt into a metal barricade.<\/p>\n The horse \u201ccollapsed instantaneously as onlookers fell silent. \u00a0The view of the horse was quickly blocked with a tarp, \u00a0as the horse was slid into a trailer and trucked off the field,\u201d\u00a0 described\u00a0SanDiegoVille.<\/em><\/p>\n The stock contractor and the San Diego Petco Park Rodeo publicity team claimed afterward that Waco Kid survived and,\u00a0 apparently after a brief stop at the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe,\u00a0 just north of San Diego, \u00a0was trucked back to a ranch on property owned by the Mandan, \u00a0Hidatsa, \u00a0and Arikara affiliated tribes of North Dakota.<\/p>\n Independent humane investigators,\u00a0 including Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi,\u00a0 have never been convinced of that,\u00a0 having never been allowed to visit Waco Kid to see for themselves.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Sheel Seidler,\u00a0 48,\u00a0 understood to be the instigator of the San Diego Petco Park Rodeo,\u00a0 has helped the Helen Woodward Animal Center to promote a \u201cpets for the homeless and low income families\u201d program at least since 2017.<\/p>\n A yoga and fitness instructor,\u00a0 of East Indian descent,\u00a0 Sheel Seidler met her late husband Peter Seidler,\u00a0 fifteen years her elder, \u00a0in 2005.<\/p>\n According to a San Diego Union Tribune<\/em> biographical summary,\u00a0 \u201cSeidler\u2019s grandfather, Walter O\u2019Malley, moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1958.\u00a0 His mother and uncle, Peter O\u2019Malley, \u00a0owned the team until 1998. \u00a0Seidler was part of the group that bought the Padres in August 2012, \u00a0moved to San Diego and quickly became active in philanthropic causes such as working to alleviate homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheel Seidler at some point became involved in \u201ccutting\u201d competitions [herding cattle using quarter horses], often held in conjunction with rodeos.<\/p>\n The first San Diego Petco Park Rodeo was in planning when Peter Seidler died on November 23, \u00a02023,\u00a0 at age 63, \u00a0after a multi-year battle with health conditions including type 1 diabetes and non-Hodgkins lymphoma.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n As well as promoting the second San Diego Petco Park Rodeo,\u00a0 Sheel Seidler is also now engaged in a lawsuit against two of her late husband\u2019s brothers,\u00a0 Bob and Matt Seidler, \u00a0seeking to win control of the Seidler Trust,\u00a0 the holding company for the Padres baseball team.<\/p>\n Her claims against the brothers apparently include racism,\u00a0 and hints that they may be planning to sell the Padres to interests who would relocate the team\u2013\u2013a highly unlikely prospect,\u00a0 in view that the Padres are among the few major league teams to own their own ballpark,\u00a0 and actually drew more fans in 2024 than the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n Only the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies attracted more.<\/p>\n The Peter Seidler Trust has responded to media that,\u00a0 \u201cPeter had a clear estate plan. \u00a0The plan specifically named three of his nine siblings, \u00a0with whom he had worked closely for many decades, \u00a0as successor trustees of his trust, \u00a0and Peter himself prohibited Sheel from ever serving as trustee.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> St. Francis of Assisi.\u00a0 (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The two-year-old San Diego Rodeo has two aspects in common with the Chinatown live markets in San Francisco,\u00a0 now operating for about 175 years.<\/p>\n First,\u00a0 both are targets of protest by Action for Animals founder Eric Mills,\u00a0 of Oakland,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 who has documented,\u00a0 publicized,\u00a0 and sought legislation against both rodeo and live market animal abuse for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n Second,\u00a0 both continue through widespread acceptance of the last refuge of scoundrels.<\/p>\n Pro-rodeo and pro-live market politicians remain in office because much of the public continues to accept that cruelty to animals in traditional forms has a stronger claim to cultural primacy than \u201cBe kind to animals,\u201d\u00a0 taught by St. Francis of Assisi more than 500 years before San Francisco was named after him.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cExclusive video obtained by\u00a0DailyMail.com <\/em>showed workers cutting open turtles while their legs were still moving, \u00a0part-suffocating frogs then decapitating them alive, \u00a0leaving fish out of water to slowly die, \u00a0and bludgeoning other animals,\u201d\u00a0 reported Josh Boswell and Shawn Cohen on January 4,\u00a0 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cThe alleged acts of animal cruelty were documented by nonprofit organization Animal Outlook, \u00a0which filmed undercover at three live animal markets in the California city in September 2024,\u201d\u00a0 Boswell and Cohen wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe charity already called out similar conditions in 2022,\u00a0 and complains that the city has done little to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> The vegan police might actually do something.<\/strong><\/em> California has had legislation specifically prohibiting many of the abuses documented by Animal Outlook since 2001,\u00a0 when a bill called AB 2479 cleared the statehouse,\u00a0 but then-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and city administrator Bill Lee reportedly refused to allow then-San Francisco Department of Animal Care & Control director Carl Friedman\u00a0to enforce the new law.<\/p>\n A succession of subsequent Department of Animal Care & Control directors and several generations of San Francisco SPCA leadership have likewise failed to enforce the 2001 law.<\/p>\n A San Francisco SPCA spokesperson told Boswell and Cohen that the SF\/SPCA \u201chas been trying to get SF\/ACC to take action for over two years after documenting similar incidents in 2022,\u201d\u00a0 Boswell and Cohen paraphrased, \u00a0\u201cbut claimed the department has only issued one citation and repeatedly refused to inspect the markets when alleged abuse was occurring.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The San Francisco Department of Animal Care & Control \u201chas previously expressed that its officers must witness cruel acts first-hand, while they are in progress, \u00a0in order to take enforcement action,\u201d\u00a0 the San Francisco SPCA told Boswell and Cohen.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when we subsequently called SF\/ACC to report cruelty \u2013 a worker suffocating a frog in a plastic bag \u2013 the agency explained that no officers would be available to inspect for at least several weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Continued Boswell and Cohen,\u00a0 \u201cMichael Angelo Torres, \u00a0chairman of the [San Francisco] Commission of Animal Control & Welfare, told\u00a0DailyMail.com<\/em>\u00a0that he believes the \u2018inhumane\u2019 conditions at the markets should \u2018immediately stop.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAs chairperson of the commission,\u201d\u00a0 Torres said, \u00a0\u201cI unconditionally support doing everything that we, \u00a0as a city, \u00a0can and should do to immediately stop the inhumane conditions in these markets.\u201d<\/p>\n But as ever,\u00a0 the political and economic clout of the Chinatown Merchants Association appears to trump that of the humane authorities.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The political and economic clout of Sheel Seidler in San Diego so far seems similarly to trump any and all opposition to the San Diego Petco Park Rodeo,\u00a0 though the lawsuit between Sheel Seidler and the rest of the Peter Seidler Trust members might eventually change the dynamic.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0 the San Diego Tourism Marketing District on November 1,\u00a0 2024 voted 6-2 to allocate $150,000 to the Padres to help promote the San Diego Petco Park Rodeo through Facebook, Instagram and Google ads in Phoenix, \u00a0San Bernardino County, Ventura and central California,\u00a0 plus text message ads to attendees at the 2024 National Finals Rodeo,\u00a0 held each December in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n Opposition to the allocation largely dissipated,\u00a0 indicated San Diego Union-Tribune<\/em> writer David Garrick,\u00a0 after San Diego city council member Kent Lee \u201cbacked away\u201d from a proposed rodeo ban \u201cin the face of backlash from local tribes and others who say rodeos are a cultural practice long intertwined with black, \u00a0indigenous, \u00a0and Mexican American communities.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The latter contention is essentially a half-truth,\u00a0 since there is scant documentation of any such \u201ccultural practice\u201d before rodeo emerged out of traveling Wild West Shows as a commercial event in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (See Charreada steer-tailing & horse-tripping defense flunks history, art, & logic<\/a> and <\/em><\/strong>SHARK video shows dogs baiting bulls at Calif. Salinas Rodeo 2019<\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In San Diego specifically,\u00a0 the San Diego Humane Society,\u00a0 founded on March 10, 1880,\u00a0 prosecuted \u201coverriding a colt\u201d in the manner of the 2024 San Diego Petco Park Rodeo \u201cindigenous wild horse race\u201d as early as June 9,\u00a0 1880.<\/p>\n The first record of a rodeo being held in either San Diego city or county appeared in the Oxnard Daily Courier<\/em> of September 12,\u00a0 1919,\u00a0 thirty-nine years later.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n According to Garrick,\u00a0 as of November 1,\u00a0 2024,\u00a0 the San Diego Humane Society \u201ccontinued to\u00a0pursue legislation\u00a0that could restrict rodeo activities within the city limits.\u201d<\/p>\n But San Diego Humane Society credibility has not been especially strong over the past decade.<\/p>\n First a newborn baby boy was killed on April 22,\u00a0 2016 by a two-year-old pit bull named Polo,\u00a0 rehomed by the San Diego Humane Society six months earlier.<\/p>\n (See How did San Diego shelters respond after a newly rehomed pit bull killed a child?)<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Then more than 300 guinea pigs,\u00a0 rabbits,\u00a0 and other small mammals were transferred on August 7,\u00a0 2023 from the San Diego Humane Society to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona,\u00a0 but the following day were relayed to a python breeder.<\/p>\n (See\u00a0318 missing small pets: San Diego Humane vs. HS of Southern Arizona<\/a><\/em><\/strong> and<\/strong><\/em> Cold, hard evidence re small mammals missing from humane societies<\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nCultural defenses of abuse prevail over cultural mandate to \u201cBe kind to animals\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a>How would Samuel Johnson have defined a rodeo cowboy or live marketer?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(From Instagram video)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nWaco Kid<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSheel Seidler<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFight over estate<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSt. Francis would not have approved<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nUndercover video<\/h2>\n
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(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nNon-enforcement of the law<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cInhumane\u201d conditions \u201cshould immediately stop\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe rich get richer by claiming descent from the poor<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFabricated history<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nWhere is the San Diego Humane Society now?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSmall mammals transferred to python breeder<\/h2>\n