The New Zealand Animal Law Association (ALA) and animal rights lobby group SAFE have sued the Minister of Agriculture and the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee over their rodeo welfare code, seeking judicial review.
The groups hope to end a sport that they said subjects animals to “unnecessary and unlawful” stress.
Although the court declined to rule on the legality of rodeo, it rejected the judicial review requested by ALA and SAFE.
The court said the proper place to challenge the practice of rodeo would be during a consultation process led by the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee.
Around 35 rodeos are held in New Zealand each year, with animals integral to events such as bull riding, calves and ox wrestling.
Lawyers for the ALA had argued that proper procedure had not been followed in adopting a rodeo-specific animal welfare code for 2018, and that rodeo under that code violated the Animal Welfare Act.
The main principles of the law are that animals should not suffer unnecessary suffering and pain.
A Code of Welfare (Rodeos) was drawn up by the Ministry of Primary Industry in 2014 and was updated in 2018.
SAFE and NZALA said the code normalizes animal cruelty at these events, which therefore violates the Animal Welfare Act.
After the Supreme Court ruling, both organizations said they would not give up.
SAFE called on the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee to urgently review the rodeo welfare code and said they would monitor the drafting of new code carefully