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Over the next few days, travellers will head to Pamplona, Spain, to participate in the annual Running of the Bulls. Some will lose their nerve; others may be gored. But one thing is for certain: by the end of the festival, every single bull will be dead.
In 2006 and 2007, I ran naked through the streets of Pamplona to draw attention to the suffering of bulls used in this festival. I saw for myself how cruelly people treated the bulls, and although the streets were crowded with members of the media, there was hardly any coverage of the ugly truth behind the sound bites.
The 30-second snippets never show the bulls as they are whipped and goaded to get them to race out of their holding pens. Pamplona's narrow cobblestone streets are slippery and slick with spilled beer, and the bulls frequently lose their footing and fall, breaking their horns and bones and sustaining cuts and bruises, and drunken revellers hit them with sticks and rolled-up newspapers.
At the end of each day, the exhausted bulls are led one by one into the bullfighting arena to fight for their lives, except that it will never be a fair 'fight': from the moment they enter the ring, the bulls have no chance of winning. Men on horses run them in circles while repeatedly piercing them with spears called banderillas until they are dizzy, weakened from blood loss and in agonising pain. The horses, who are blindfolded, can also sustain serious injuries when they can't avoid a charging bull. Some will have their vocal cords cut so that the crowds can't hear their screams of terror. The matador (Spanish for 'killer') takes over only when the exhausted bull is already near death. After blundered attempts to severe their spinal cord, bulls are often still conscious as their ears and tail are cut off as 'trophies' and as they are dragged from the ring on chains. Then another bull enters the arena, and the horrific cycle starts again.
Most Spaniards are appalled that this archaic blood 'sport' continues in the new millennium and are calling for an end to the carnage. Even though Catalonia's capital, Barcelona, is widely considered the birthplace of bullfighting, the Catalan Parliament overwhelmingly voted to ban bullfighting after officials were presented with the signatures of 180,000 people. Dozens of other towns throughout Spain have also banned bullfighting, as have the Canary Islands.
Since most bullfighting arenas are nearly empty during 'fights', it's the tourists' cash that perpetuates the killing. Curious to see for themselves what a bullfight is really like, travellers buy a ticket or go to one because it's part of their package itinerary. Only sadists will leave a bullfight having enjoyed themselves, but every pound spent means that more bulls will be doomed to die. Bullfighting in Spain is a dying industry which is currently heavily subsidised by the EU.
From my talks with spectators and the media, it seems that most people really don't know that the bulls in Pamplona are running to their deaths. But it's 2012, and surely we've evolved to the point of demanding that cruel spectacles of animal abuse stop being used as entertainment.
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What the Spanish government calls a "fiesta" is actually just a small part of a sickening economic industry based on horrifying victimization; sadistic abuse; extreme cruelty and torture of innocent bulls (and horses) during the cruel exhibitions of "bullfights and blood fiestas."
BEFORE the running of the bulls, workers use electric prods and sharp sticks to rile the usually peaceful and quiet bulls into a frenzy. Then the bulls are debilitated with tranquilizers and beaten before being taken to the ring, where they are repeatedly speared with barb-tipped wooden dagger-harpoons before being stabbed to death.
DURING the running of the bulls, the tormented, teased and terrified bulls slip and fall on the slippery cobblestone streets, injuring themselves, even breaking their bones.
The MAJORITY of "INTELLIGENT; CIVILIZED" native Spaniards are "screaming and protesting" for "total abolition" of these shameful atrocities.
(For more information go to www.stopourshame.com; the website of the people of Spain to their government, and www.bullfightbloodbath.com to "witness" the "reality" of the "bullfighting" industry.)
The running of the bulls is "IDIOTIC TOURISM and MARKETING" based on CRUELTY to INNOCENT ANIMALS, and NO ONE should be "assisting" the greedy, corrupt Spanish government or the equally greedy and corrupt European Union in continuing to "romanticize" and portray it as something "cool and exciting" and "mislead," "IGNORANT" TOURISTS.
First, you all must know that the bulls are not necessarily destined to death. In fact, many times, they're sent back to live on their habitat until they die.
Second, those men with sticks are there to protect people form the bulls and viceversa. You're not allowed to touch the bulls.
Art is protagonist in most bullfights, but you can only know this by attending.
Also, the industry behind the bullfights feeds millions of people in Spain, France and America.
Horses' vocal cords have never been cut. It's a lie. Horse ridders love their horses as if they were best friends.
This region of Spain called Catalonia banned bullfights due to nationalisim; they though it was too Spanish. However, they still have ways of making the bulls suffer; with fire on their horns. They suffer more, and it's not banned in Catalonia because they find it more propper of their region.
Tourism helps, but the bullfighting industry does not depend on it. There are many people who watch bullfights. In Spain, France and in America.
It's ok to give one's opinion on anything but, please, don't lie. You can harm many people who live from this. A person's life is over an animal's.
I hope I helped anyone to change his/her mind with this suject. Bullfighting is a beautiful art that is badly described on this article.
T reduce animal suffering focus on two issues
1. the destruction of natural habitat and
2. factory farming and agribusiness
Lashing out at every form of animal cruelty may make you feel good, but it has no effect. We all know the large-scale suffering is in the wild as habitats are destroyed and in factory farms where tens of millions of animals are badly treated.
Do you own leather products?
They are killed to give the matadors an even better chance of survival than they have now. Fighting bulls are dying before they get into the arena, as sandbags are thrown across their backs to rupture their kidneys. They are detained in the dark for a long time before being released into the arena, thus being dazzled by the sun, making it easier for picadors to stab them in the shoulders to tear their muscles, weakening their head lifting powers.
Add to that the practice of shortening a bulls horns so it tends to miss its target, and the "brave" matador has the odds massively stacked on his side.
As for the custom of tying flaming torches to the horns of a bull, nobody could seriously claim that is not terrible cruelty. Every animal is scared of fire, and the poor thing is quite clearly in terror in the AOL clip. I found it disturbing that people in the 21st century still find this tormenting of animals acceptable, but apparently, some do. Sad people.
A bull would not be in danger of goring anyone if it was in a field eating grass and courting cows.
Also - 'victim'? The use of that work shows that you simply do not understand the corrida at all. The culture of tauromachy worships the bull - I must have seen 50 corridas in FRance, Spain - and I'm telling you factually from my experience there is no bloodlust in the crowd. They admire the bull and his bravery. Also, you would not use the word victim if you knew how these bulls are raised and treated. Of all the animals 'farmed' by man, they have as good a life as any, and frankly their death is not that much worse than being bolt-gunned by a guy in an abattoir, 2 years old, pumped full of hormones. The Spanish fighting bull has 5 years, completely unmolested, on a huge ranch. Then spends 15 to 20 minutes in the ring before death. I know which life I'd choose.
You are talking a load of c _ _ _!
Bye the way, Spain generally (not everywhere) is very cruel to it's animals.
I can't decide whether I'll have In-N-Out for dinner tonight or a good steak.
Beef is what's for dinner.
Get over it.
It's what's for dinner...
I abhor those weak individuals that believe that meat comes wrapped in plastic at the supermarket.
Beef comes from steers. Who are raised for one purpose - to be killed for the meat.
Chicken - raised for one purpose - to be killed for the meat.
Turkeys. Pigs. Etc.
Much of those "amber waves of grain" are being fed to those animals.
Who will be killed so that humans can eat them.
Bullfighting traces its roots to prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice. The killing of the sacred bull is the essential central iconic act of Mithras, which was commemorated in the mithraeum wherever Roman soldiers were stationed.
I'm very happy that the Spanish and others still have a sense of history and still celebrate their roots.
Primitive as it may be, bullfighting is a reminder of the primitiveness of man.
A good reminder from time to time.
And, it turns out, a necessary reminder for those craven, timid individuals that believe that, somehow, the violent, cruel nature of man is not everpresent.