Spain's environment minister has opened a campaign to stop matadors giving the traditional gory death blow to bulls in the ring. Instead, the badly wounded animals would be taken away and swiftly killed more humanely.
MADRID — Spain's environment minister has opened a campaign to stop matadors giving the traditional gory death blow to bulls in the ring.
Instead, the badly wounded animals should be taken away and swiftly killed more humanely, as is the practice in neighbouring Portugal, Cristina Narbona told Thursday's El Mundo newspaper.
"We have to at least try and avoid the bull's bloody end," she said.
Bullfighting is a Spanish tradition that is fiercely defended by many, and the minister acknowledged that change could only come gradually -- "perhaps in the next parliament" -- and that she was only expressing a personal view.
In Portugal, the bull is fought as in Spain, being passed with capes, wounded by lances and having long darts stuck into its back, but is then led out to be slaughtered in private.
In Spain, the matador despatches the bull with a sword thrust which is now always clean and leads on rare occasions to the bull vomiting blood as it dies.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in a radio interview he foresaw no speedy changes to the bullfighting rulebook for which he is responsible.
"This isn't on the government's agenda. I can guarantee that," he said.
Bullfighting has come under increasing pressure in forums such as the European Parliament but, as yet, no serious attempt has been made to try and ban it although the spectacle clearly infringes European animal rights regulations.
In Spain, it is especially under pressure in the Catalan region where the Barcelona city council declared itself against bullfights in the city in 2004.
This hasn't stopped them happening every Sunday in season but last week, newspapers said Barcelona bullring's owners were losing money and wanted to turn it into a shopping mall.
This was a record year for bullfighting in Spain with 2,127 fights, five percent more than in 2005, said the www.mundotoro.com bullfighting information website.
France held over 140 bullfights this year in which the bull is also killed as in Spain. The Latin American season is under way in Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
Source: Reuters
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