COSTA MESA — Mixing bulls, people and fire constitutes animal cruelty, not entertainment, argued a small group of animal lovers protesting an “extreme rodeo” at the Orange County Fair.

“We’re trying to stop animal abuse tonight. Please don’t go to the rodeo,” Paris Connolly, of Newport Beach, called out to fair-goers as she passed out fliers against the event Sunday evening.

Brenda Calvillo, a Huntington Beach resident who organized the protests that ran for five nights, said her goal was to educate fair-goers.

“A lot of people don’t even know what’s going on,” she said.

The rodeo is a money-making industry according to protester Paris Connolly. The Newport Beach resident is against the extreme rodeo at Costa Mesa’s OC Fair on Sunday, Aug. 6. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“I used to go to the rodeo in Houston. I’m guilty of going to those places that make you think you’re getting closer to the animals. People think they’re seeing untamed animals, but that’s not the case. The animals are docile. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to travel from place to place,” Paris Connolly of Newport Beach, left, says. The protester talks to a fellow vegan, Andrew Dominguez of Los Angeles at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa on Sunday, Aug. 6. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Brenda Calvillo says in some rodeos, but not the OC Fair, calves are shocked with an electric prod out of the chute. The sudden jolt from a rope thrown around the neck and jerking the baby to a sudden stop can cause hemorrhaging and death by broken neck, according to the organizer. The Huntington Beach resident protests against animal cruelty at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa on Sunday, Aug. 6. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The extreme rodeo isn’t on Jenna Bier’s radar. The 9-year-old Ladera Ranch resident walks past protesters Brenda Calvillo and Caroline Havens at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa on Sunday, Aug. 6. Protesters were restricted to the “freedom of expression” zone outside of the Blue Gate Entrance far from their target location. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Brenda Calvillo urges OC Fair goers to buck the rodeo. The Huntington Beach resident handed out anti animal cruelty literature at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa on Sunday, Aug. 6. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)



“How would you like it if your mom, sister or aunt was grabbed by the neck like (rodeo) calves are?,” Andrew Dominguez of Los Angeles, center, says after looking at a picture of a roped calf in a pamphlet handed out to him by protester Paris Connolly of Newport Beach, left, at Costa Mesa’s OC Fair on Sunday, Aug. 6. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Part of the Extreme Rodeo features men dressed as cowboys standing in the middle of circles of fire until a bull plows through the fire-rings to push the cowboys out of the circles.

A video in the OC Register last week featured a bull trampling one of the cowboys into the fire, with the man then rolling on the ground to put out the flames that caught on his clothing.

Related Articles A bull trampling a man into fire? Welcome to the Extreme Rodeo at the OC Fair

Photos: OC Fair offers adrenaline rush with bull jumping in Extreme Rodeo show Reno Rosser, whose family owns the Flying U Rodeo company that puts on the show, said of the rodeos: “This isn’t your grandfather’s rodeo…It’s a pretty exciting show. It’s for everybody. It’s extreme. And it’s Western.”

Rosser said he had not heard of any protests and disagreed with comments posted by readers on the Register website last week that criticized his company and the events as “extreme animal abuse” and “animal torture.”

“It is our belief that some people will never be content until the last animal is taken out of the fairs,” Rosser said in an e-mail to the Register Friday.

The events “have been near sellouts and none of the animal athletes have been harmed during the performances,” Rosser wrote.

Other fair shows involving animals criticized by the protesters this year included a “Broncs and Bulls” event.

Terry Moore, a spokeswoman for the OC Fair, said in an e-mail: “Animal welfare is a priority at the OC Fair. We only contract with reputable companies that have good animal safety records.”

Calvillo, who co-founded a group called Humanity for Animals, said she plans to take her concerns to the Orange County Fair Board, which in 2012 banned elephant rides at the fair, ending a quarter-century summertime tradition. The Santa Ana Zoo, known for its monkey exhibits, ended elephant rides in 2011.