Toro de la Vega - a national disgrace!
Bull is speared to death at Spanish festival – but judges cancel medal
Activists and festival’s supporters clash in Tordesillas before bull is set loose, but the way it is killed is in breach of the rules
Men on horseback in a Spanish town chased down a bull and speared it to death on Tuesday during the annual Toro de la Vega festival – a tradition reviled by animal rights activists, who turned out in their hundreds to protest.
Scuffles broke out between activists and the festival’s more numerous supporters before the bull, weighing more than half a ton, was set loose in the north-central town of Tordesillas.
The activists staged a sit-down protest but scattered, along with festival supporters, when the bull was released and headed towards them before being driven to a field.
The bull-spearing event has been held for centuries. The person credited with killing the bull usually gets a medal, and on Tuesday a young man was initially hailed as the winner.
But the Tordesillas mayor, José Antonio González, later said judges observing the event had decided no one would get the award this year. The judges found three violations of the event’s rules: the bull was killed by more than one person, it was speared from behind and it died outside the designated area where it was supposed to be killed.
Rules specify that the person who spears the bull first must finish it off. In 2012, there was no winner because the bull was killed outside the designated area.
Spain’s opposition Socialist party said it planned to introduce an animal cruelty bill to parliament next year that would prohibit the bull-spearing event.
The justice minister, Rafael Catala, said Spain already had animal cruelty laws, and defended the Tordesillas event as a “historic and cultural tradition”. Catala is a member of the governing Popular party, which holds a majority in parliament but faces a general election in December.
In Tordesillas, Beatriz Álvarez, 42, a wine maker, said the festival generated jobs serving the thousands who attend the event, and blamed a small group of opponents for bad publicity. “If you don’t like it, don’t come,” she said.
Yolanda Brezos, a protester from Barcelona who had made herself up with fake blood streaming from her eyes and was carrying a toy bull, said: “I have the words taken away from me seeing that human beings the same as you living in the same age as you can enjoy the suffering of a living being.”
Comments
I have never heard about Toro de la Vega but, as you told me about it and you say in this post, I don´t understand the reason because they do this barbarity. It should be banned. So far, it shouldn’t be necessary because the people from Vega, that is, from that village or town, should reach a level of intelligence enough to understand that’s wildness.
I always remember the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, when I hear about this treatment to animals. What’d be the matter if we were animals and, by contrast, they were human beings? In my opinion, this people don’t read anything, but do they know to read? ¡What a pity!
See you.
I will never understand why a country permits such cruelty to animals. Unfortunately, mistreatment of animals is not exclusive to Spain. However, there are few countries in the developed world in which torturing and killing animals for fun happens on such a scale as it does here.
I had never heard of Toro de la Vega. The first time was when you told me about it and posted the news about it here. I don´t understand the reason why they do this barbarity. It should be banned. It shouldn’t be necessary because the people from Vega, that is, from that village or town, should reach a level of intelligence enough to understand that it's savagery.
I always remember the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, when I hear about such treatment of animals. What would happen if we were animals and, by contrast, they were human beings? In my opinion, this people don’t read anything, do they even know how to read? What a disgrace! / It's disgraceful.