A Ruthless Cultural Sport : Bullfighting

People think it is brave for the bull fighters to go in and fight a mad bull. Yet there is nothing brave at all. The bull is weakened and injured before the fight so that he poses no significant danger to a bullfighter.

The Pre-Fight Treatment

The bull is not a normally aggressive animal. The reason he charges around and seems angry is because of the horrible treatment he got before the fight. The bull is not normal and healthy, but weakened, half-blind and mentally destroyed.

The bull has wet newspapers stuffed into his ears. Vaseline is rubbed into his eyes to blur his vision. Cotton is stuffed into the bull's nostrils to cut-off respiration. A needle is stuck into his genitals to irritate him. A strong caustic solution is rubbed onto his legs, which throw off balance and prevent him from lying down.

Sometimes a bull may be weakened from beatings, and might have his horns shaved to keep him off balance.

Drugs are administered, to slow him down or pep him up. Strong laxatives are added to his feed to further weaken him. The bull is kept in a dark box for a few days. The purpose of keeping him in a dark box is to disorientate him.

When the bull is set free he runs towards the light in the end of the tunnel, and thinks his sufferings are finally over. But he is only to face his killers.

The Bull fight

First the bull is taunted by a matador with a cape. The bull is then approached by picadors, who drive lances into the bull's back and neck muscles impairing the the bulls ability to lift its head and defend itself. They make sure to twist and gauge the lances to ensure that the bull looses a lot of blood.

Then the banderilleros come on foot. They the distract the bull and dart around him, and plunge bright coloured sticks called banderillas into his back. Once the bull is weakened from blood loss, the banderilleros make the bull run in circles until he becomes dizzy and stops chasing them.

Finally the  matador enters. After provoking a few exhausted charges by the injured animal, he tries to kill it by the sword. A trumpet signals the final 'act'. Throughout the bullfight strange slow tunes are playing.

The kill should last 6 minutes.

The matador is supposed to cut the artery near the heart with one thrust of his sword. But this almost never happens. It usually takes two or three stabs with the sword before the bull dies. By now the bull's lungs and heart would be punctured and he would be vomiting blood. Sometimes the bull tries to rise again. He gets up on his knees, only to be further mutilated by his tormentors. Finally he gives up and lies down.

If the matador has any difficulty the others immediately rush to help him and finish of the bull.

If the crowd is pleased with the matador the bull's tail and ears is cut-off and given to the him.

He is dragged around the ring by horses or mules, to which he is attached by an apparatus made out of wood and chains. The crowd throws empty beer cans and jeer at him. Then he is sent away to be skinned. He may not even be dead when that happens.

Horses

The bull is not the only animal who suffers. The horses who are used in bullrings tremble and sweat with fear. Horses have their ears stuffed with wet newspaper and are blindfolded. Their vocal cords are cut so they can't scream in pain. 

Horses often stumble upon their own enthralls after being badly gored. After a horse has been gored or wounded, it is led out of the ring and given crude surgery, and then brought back into the ring again. 

Usually the picador's horses are old animals who are docile and infirm, and whose working life is over.

Hundreds of horses die long and agonising deaths when they are gored by frightened and pain-crazed bulls.

As you can see, it is not a fair fight against the bull. There are so many people involved, the bull is weakened before the fight itself and the people have weapons. The bull is killed brutally, with no mercy.

The opposition to bull fighting is growing, and things slowly are starting to change, bit by bit. One day we hope to see that the bulls don't have to go the fighting ring anymore.