A man on horseback in a corral rides alongside a fleeing steer while reaching for the animal’s tail, which he skillfully wraps around his right cowboy boot while maintaining a grip on the appendage.The steer twists and tumbles to the dirt. The rider — part of a so-called backyard rodeo in Chicag o's far northwest suburbs last summer — gallops off, holding something grotesque in his hand: part of the steer’s tail, which was ripped free.Called degloving, the injury is common at these events, according to animal rights activists who have been trying for years to stop what's known as steer-tailing, saying it's animal abuse that’s illegal under state law, though that's seldom enforced.In McHenry County, though, officials have cracked down. As a result, three men were sentenced Wednesday to a year of conditional discharge, similar to probation, on misdemeanor animal cruelty charges stemming from an event held last summer in an unincorporated area near Woodstock. The sentence handed down by Judge Justin Hansen also included $250 fines and an order barring the men from "intentional contact" with animals, with some exceptions, during the one-year period.The men were prosecuted relying on drone video footage of the rodeo taken by the animal advocacy group SHARK, which stands for Showing Animals Respect and Kindness. The organization has documented similar events in parts of Will County and elsewhere in Illinois, including Ogle County.According to prosecutors, one of the men in McHenry County, Alfredo Magallanes, “participated in a rodeo steer-tailing event” at which he “knowingly pulled the tail of a live steer with sufficient force which caused a degloving injury that was captured on drone video.“The act caused pain and exposed the animal to further harm and infection, constituting cruel treatment of the steer, contrary” to Illinois law, court records show.Magallanes, 24, of Marengo, pleaded guilty, as did two other men who also were charged.Each apologized in court, saying the tail injuries were unintentional. Garrett Fisher, a lawyer who represented them, told the judge, “These were all accidental events" in “a very physical and demanding sport” that "in no way rewards or encourages” harming animals.Prosecutor Joe Creager responded: "To call this a sport or even a demanding sport is offensive to rodeo . . . . This is punishing cows for sport."A juvenile from Lockport was initially cited as well, but that case was dropped.A fifth person, Socorro Barrientos, 68, previously went to trial, but the judge in that case hasn’t ruled, according to court records that say the defendant kicked “a steer in the head over 10 times” at the same event as the others “while it was on the ground and not posing a threat.” In a scene captured by an animal rights group on drone video in McHenry County last year, a man on horseback chases down a steer, grabs and tears away the tail, and the animal limps off.Showing Animals Respect and Kindness According to Jodie Wiederkehr, a Chicago resident who is SHARK’s campaigns director, it doesn't appear that steer-tailing and backyard rodeos are becoming more common, but they're getting more attention from animal rights activists spotlighting what they say is mistreatment and abuse.“The reason it’s going on is because there’s a lot of money being made,” according to Wiederkehr, who says tickets to the private backyard rodeos can run $50 apiece and describes them as festive, with “dancing and drinking and having fun” in addition to the rodeo events.She says the treatment of steers is torture even when their tails aren’t torn away.Another SHARK video from a backyard rodeo shows a steer limping off with what appears to be a broken leg after being taken down by a rider on horseback.Wiederkehr says the animals are sometimes poked or hit with sticks, shocked with cattle prods, worked until exhausted and even bitten on their tails by rodeo participants.“These animals are often left to suffer for hours without veterinary treatment or pain relief,” says Wiederkehr, who pushed for the Chicago City Council to vote in 2020 to ban horse-drawn carriages over concerns about their well-being.Under Illinois’ Humane Care for Animals Act, “No person or owner may beat, cruelly treat, torment, starve, overwork or otherwise abuse any animal.” Also, animal owners are required by the law to provide "veterinary care when needed to prevent suffering.”SHARK president Steve Hindi, based in Kane County, says authorities in Illinois often don’t enforce the law even when it's clear that animals have been abused. He says an issue that's been raised is that the law doesn’t specifically ban steer-tailing.His response to that: “There’s no law that” explicitly “says you can’t throw a puppy out a window,” but the anti-cruelty statute would cover that.“We shouldn’t need a new law,” he says. SHARK’s Steve Hindi, at left, and Jodie Wiederkehr.Provided A bill introduced by state Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, would have spelled out that steer-tailing is illegal, but the measure failed to advance this year in the Illinois General Assembly. It read in part: “No person may intentionally drag or pull any bovine by its tail by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport, practice or contest.”The Illinois Senate instead approved a nonbinding resolution that says: "We discourage all acts of bovine tailing and its associated harms.”There’s been some resistance to cracking down on steer-tailing, called “coleadero” in Spanish because of its place in Mexican rodeo culture going back centuries.State Sen. Li Arellano Jr., R-Dixon, who cosponsored the stalled proposal to ban steer-tailing, says its “injury rate is higher than almost any other rodeo event” and that he knows of no reputable U.S. rodeo organization — for the Mexican-style rodeos or the Western-style rodeos more common in the United States — that promotes steer-tailing. State Sen. Rachel Ventura (D-Joliet), at left, and state Sen. Li Arellano (R-Dixon.)senatorventura.com, Illinois General Assembly Arellano likens steer-tailing “to cockfighting and bullfighting" and says, “The day for coleadero is over, and we need to figure out how to do it.”He says the matter is likely to come up again later this year in the Legislature.Hindi is critical of Gov. JB Pritzker for not having the Illinois Department of Agriculture do more.Animal activists say the agency is supposed to assist law enforcement. But an agriculture department spokeswoman says it's "not a unit of law enforcement" and "does not have the authority to file criminal charges."Members of the McHenry County Board recently considered a measure to ban steer-tailing, but it failed to pass amid opposition from the McHenry County Farm Bureau.“We support the animal welfare laws," the farm bureau's Dan Volkers says. "They’re on the books for a reason, and people are being prosecuted for doing things that are inappropriate.“Our primary concern is really interpretation and unintended consequences” of the proposed county measure, Volkers says. “If the wording isn’t just perfect, something that’s common practice” on a farm or ranch “could be viewed by an animal rights person as abuse.”Rather than add a crime to the books, Volkers says, “I think there are things that can be done on the zoning side that’d limit those types of activities."Some backyard rodeos get local permits, but others don't, officials say.In Will County, the state’s attorney’s office has pursued temporary restraining orders when officials learned of an upcoming rodeo that raised concerns about the treatment of the animals, “the land-use aspect” of dealing with crowds, traffic or questions about “proper permitting,” Assistant State’s Attorney Toni Renken says. Steer tailing captured by drone footage in McHenry County last year.Showing Animals Respect and Kindness. Renken points to two instances in which “the property owners did come in, speak with us” and reach an agreement “to not do any horse tripping, cattle prodding, tail pulling” and the like.“We believe” steer-tailing “is inhumane treatment toward animals, it is horrific, it should be prosecuted," Renken says. "We believe it falls under the Humane Care for Animals Act,” which her boss, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, was involved in getting passed.A law targeting steer-tailing would help “clarify for the judiciary that this is an abuse,” Renken says, noting that some in the judicial system have questioned whether it falls under the existing law.“We are zealous about this and would work with anyone about drafting legislation” that all sides “would be comfortable with,” Renken says.Elyssa Ford, an associate professor of history at Washington State University who has studied rodeos, says any legislative discussion needs to be "inclusive.""There are things that are hundreds of years old that we, as a society," now "say is not OK," Ford says. "We’ve seen this with bullfighting."Any move to ban steer-tailing should "include various constituent groups and interest groups in those conversations," Ford says.In 2023, Glasgow’s office prosecuted a rodeo rider from Batavia for beating a horse during a Joliet-area rodeo in an incident that was captured on video by a SHARK drone.In Ogle County, west of DeKalb County, a permit for a rodeo recently was surrendered after a lawsuit was filed by SHARK and others.Wiederkehr got into trouble in Ogle County last year for calling dispatchers to report animal abuse at the venue and, unsatisfied that the police weren’t going to be sent there, reported there was a shooting, apparently trying to force a response. She was convicted last month of false reporting and harassment but hasn’t been sentenced. She's seeking a new trial. Related Tiny snake native to Illinois prairies faces new hurdles in Chicago region and beyond American robins’ numbers are on the decline. 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