Bullfighting is another cruel spectacle of human dominance.
At best, the term "bullfighting" is a misnomer, as there is usually little
competition between the sword of a nimble matador (Spanish for "killer") and a
confused, maimed, psychologically tormented, and physically debilitated bull.
The bull never has a chance to defend himself,
much less to survive. Supporters justify the act by calling it a tradition.
Approximately 40,000 bulls a year are tormented and killed in bullfighting in Spain alone.
Before bulls get to the bullring they have been branded with red-hot irons and have had
metallic tags pierced trough their ears.
Fighting bulls in Spain have created trough a process of genetic selection - it is
merely an artificially developed more aggressive breed, breed to give more "entertainment"
to the slavering mob. The bulls are fed pellets, which create such muscular deficiency that
by the time the bulls enter the arena they may fall to their knees, so weak are they.
To provoke the bull's aggression they are regularly chased and pushed over on the farm where
they are held. Heavy weights may be hung around the bull's necks for weeks before the fight.
The bulls may suffer beatings to the kidneys. Also while on the animal at the farm, both bulls
and cows are relentlessly chased by men on horseback, armed with lances. They spike the animal at the top end of his tail, which produces a very painful and
distressing sensation causing him to lose balance and fall backwards.
One common practice is to "shave" the bulls’ horns by sawing off a few inches.
Bulls’ horns, like cats’ whiskers, help the animals navigate, so a sudden change
impairs the bull’s coordination. Shaving is illegal, so the horns are sometimes
inspected by a veterinarian after a fight. But in 1997, the Confederation of
Bullfighting Professionals, including Spain’s 230 matadors, went on strike in
opposition to these veterinary inspections. The strikers claimed veterinarians
were "not experienced enough" to inspect the bulls.
He may also be given a cocktail of drugs: tranquillizers for the truck journey,
anaesthetic for the horn shaving, stimulates to produce more aggression in the
ring, an upper, or a downer to sabotage the performance of other bullfighters.
Petroleum jelly is rubbed into his eyes to blur vision.
The bull finally arrives at the arena and is confined in a box for hours so that he
cannot see daylight. He can hardly move. When the doors of the bull ring open and bull
sees freedom and light, he rushes forward, and finds himself alone, In the bullring bewildered,
drugged, surrounded by malignant merciless crowds of people who will throughout be calling out for his
death and cheering on the torturers, rejoicing in the savagery.
In a typical event, the bull enters the arena and a group of humans in fancy dress and
tight pants begin to attack him. Exhaust and frustrate him by running him in circles and
tricking him into collisions. When the bull is tired and out of breath, he is approached
by picadors. Picadors are men on blindfolded horses who drive lances into the bull's back
and neck muscles. This impairs the bull's ability to lift his head. they twist and
gouge the lances to ensure a significant amount of blood loss.
Horses used in bullfighting are shot behind the ears with dope. The horses
are drugged and blindfolded. They often have wet newspaper stuffed in their ears
to impair their hearing, and their vocal cords are usually cut so that their cries
do not "distract" the crowed. A horse may be heavily padded in the ring, but the bull
can still throw the horse to the ground and gore him. If the horses are mounted by
matadors in a fight, the animals have
no protection at all, so many of them die each season.
The bull's torment has not ended yet. After the pike come the banderillas,
which are usually in three pairs. They are harpoons decorated with colored bunting.
They are driven into the bull, there to remain embedded in his back and enlarge
the wound. The bull's bleeding back
muscles will be destroyed as he moves around the ring.
The bull is exhausted. The matador now prances around waving his cape "preparing the
animal for its supreme fate". For the bull, there is no escape. He may be lucky and be
killed straight away with one thrust of the meter-long sword to his heart… Or it may take
several strikes, and the bull may die from perforated lungs. He may not be dead even yet.
The terrified, still bewildered shocked and
deliberately weakened bull collapses. No, this not the end of his torment.
Parts of the bull are cut off with a knife while the animal is still conscious but
paralyzed and breathing his last, prone, helpless on the stand. The gory trophies are
one or both ears, maybe the tail.
The bull is by what is left of his horns and is dragged out of the ring by horses. The
bull is still in agony, on one occasion he even managed to stand up, bloody, piked,
stabbed innumerable times, drugged, and shocked, with ears and tail cut off, the bull
stood up, the bleeding shattered epitome of man's handiwork.
In Mexico, bullfighting has an added feature, Novillada, or baby bullfighting.
Baby bulls, some no more than a few weeks old, are brought into a small arena where they
stabbed to death by spectators, many of whom are children. These bloodbaths end with
spectators hacking off the ears and tail of the often fully conscious little calf lying
in his own blood.
The barbarous practice of Farra Do Boi (oxen festival) is where an ox is
chased through the streets by laughing crowds of villagers with sticks,
knives, stones etc, sometimes with the terrified animal fleeing into the
ocean and drowning, or running into people's houses for sanctuary, or he
deliberately run over by cars in the streets, or has its four legs
cut off, the poor live animal left lying on its bleeding stumps.
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Whether the excuse is, taste, entertainment, vivisection or tradition,
humans will always find a way to torture and kill animals.
There are even several bullfighting schools in Spain, financially supported by
donations, institutional finds, conferences, and exhibitions, all on the theme of
bullfighting. They practically teach humans how to torture an innocent animal, how
to become more cruel.
Most bullrings are owned by the state, which subsidize the fights depending on whether
they run at a profit or a loss. Cowardly politicians would rather do nothing to change
or challenge bullfighting.
The crowd cheers as a picador riding a blindfolded horse pokes a long sharp-tipped lance
into the bull, twisting and turning his weapon so that muscle fibers are shredded and blood
streams down the animal's back. This is not a ferocious bull. The animal frantically looks
right and then left for a means to escape. There is none. He has no chance.
Colorfully dressed banderilleros run out holding sharp, multicolored ribboned skewers,
one in each hand, and forcefully plunge them deep into the animal's flesh.
Ole! That's the sound of an excited crowd responding to a matador's sword thrusting deep
between the shoulder blades of an exhausted bull.
Ole! That's the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd as the bull collapses upon itself after
the sword pierces its heart, gallons of blood spurting and gurgling out of its nose and mouth.
Ole! The crowd screams with pleasure as a co-conspirator slice through the spinal cord
and the animal begins its deathly shudder.
Ole! One last roar as the honored assassin slices off first one ear, then another.
People showed no concern or pity for the animals. At one point, a bull that had been
stabbed twice in the back began to breakdown from the massive blood loss. The crowd
joined together in a slow handclap as his legs trembled and his body shook for a full
30 seconds. The clapping turned to cheers as the bull collapsed to the ground in agony.
