Animal abuse concerns have Mohave County leaders willing to consider a ban on traveling circuses with wild and exotic animals, but not rodeos.

Mohave County is home to at least six rodeos a year, which makes them a big chunk of the local economy, said Supervisor Steve Moss. 

There’s a difference between circus animals like elephants “and historically domesticated animals like horses and dogs, which can be trained, but not tortured into compliance,” Moss said.

Rodeos are part of Mohave County’s Old West heritage, and Moss is not willing to outlaw certain events that activists might consider cruel. 

“When it comes to steers and calves, for example,” Moss said. “Yeah, you’re pulling them down and roping them up. But you’re not permanently maiming and killing them, which would be my definition of abuse.”

It will likely be months before the County Attorney gives the Board of Supervisors an opinion on outlawing circuses, Moss said.