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Wyoming’s outdated license plate logo can buck right off—that’s the message PETA is driving home in a bid to replace the Bucking Horse and Rider design with one that doesn’t perpetuate cruelty to animals.
As Wyoming rolls out its new license plates for 2025, PETA is urging the state’s senate president and speaker of the house to introduce an amendment to Wyoming Statute Title 31 Motor Vehicles § 31-2-204—which currently requires that the Bucking Horse and Rider design appear on all state license plates—to allow Wyoming residents to make a compassionate choice with respect to their vehicles.
In a letter to legislators, PETA suggested alternative license plate designs, saying, “You could, for example, replace this old silhouette with one of a majestic horse, like those who gallop across Wyoming, or with a triceratops, the first dinosaur whose bones were excavated in the state and who is now the state dinosaur. Or if you continue to promote rodeos, we ask that your license plates at least more accurately reflect the cruelty that animals exploited for entertainment endure with a silhouette of a bloody spur.”
Rodeos Belong in the Rearview Mirror
Wyoming’s Bucking Horse and Rider logo promotes the cruelty of rodeos, which are displays of human domination over vulnerable animals. During rodeo events such as calf roping, bull riding, and steer wrestling, humans often electroshock animals, slam calves to the ground, and painfully spur horses.
Animals used in rodeos have sustained severe and sometimes fatal injuries, including broken backs and necks, heart attacks, punctured lungs, deep internal organ bruising, ripped tendons, and aneurysms. In early June, at the Overland Stage Stampede Rodeo, one horse sustained a broken neck in the arena and died instantly and another was later euthanized due to a severely broken leg.
While animals don’t choose to partake in these violent spectacles, the humans who do willingly participate often sustain serious injuries as well. Just recently, one man died from injuries resulting from being thrown off a bull at a rodeo in Bandera, Texas.
Every Animal Is Someone
Our fellow animals are individuals with their own unique personalities, interests, and needs. Horses form lifelong bonds with other members of their herd, and cows establish complex social hierarchies within their herd. Animals don’t want to be used in rodeos—at the very least, Wyoming residents should have the choice not to support these events in any way.
Wyoming Residents: Urge Legislators to Change the License Plate Logo
PETA’s progressive license plate designs would allow Wyoming residents to speak up against speciesism every time they get behind the wheel. If you are a resident of Wyoming, please ask your elected officials to support an amendment that would allow you to sport an animal-friendly license plate.
If you don’t live in Wyoming, you can still speak up for animals used at rodeos. If a rodeo comes to your town, contact local authorities, write letters to sponsors, leaflet at the gate, or hold a demonstration. Contact PETA for help:
