Need help ASAP! Horse tripping laws in Iowa????

There is an event going on NOW!

Law 021-1700 is an Iowa law?

OS

Iowa's animal abuse statute is one of the most f'd up statutes out there IIRC. It's abuse if you abuse an animal owned by another person, unless you have their permission. In the case of horse tripping, I'm going to assume that the animals provided are done so as a promotion and therefore under consent of the owner of them.

No, seriously. You could beat your animal to death with a bat (so long as you didn't intend specifically to torture him/her) and you'd be just fine. No charges for you.

Also, some contests are banned (dog fighting, bear baiting, etc) but any rodeo event is fine, no matter what it is.

Iowa is not one of the better states for animals.

On edit: yeah, it's Iowa Statute 717.1 which specifically covers livestock. 717B.1 covers domestic animals and has the rodeo exception.

Any time Iowa tries to tighten up its animal abuse statutes, the hog and chicken "farmers" get worried that they might actually be expected to treat kindly the animals in their care. The horror! So, they pour big bucks into lobbying in favor of animal abuse. I was the founding secretary of a Humane Society in rural Iowa, and CAFO owners in the area did what they could to stop our work, even though we were focused on dogs, cats, and horses. Some towns in the county gave us the funds they raised from animal licenses, and when those ordinances were passed, we could count on CAFO owners or managers showing up at city council meetings to argue against them.

And don't even get me started on the ways the meat industry lobbies the state legislature. These people are just evil!

I'm beginning to rant. So, I think you get my point.

http://equisearch.com/equiwire_news/horse_tripping_banned_090309/

"Since 1994, it has been illegal to “intentionally trip or fell an equine by the legs by any means whatsoever for the purpose of entertainment or sport” in California. Six other states--New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Illinois and Maine--subsequently passed similar legislation."

So sorry, I read Illinois, not Iowa for some reason. So sorry. I guess it's legal.

perhaps you can all try to get it outlawed!