Hertfordshire Woman Among ‘Tortured Bulls’ Making Plea Ahead of Pamplona’s ‘Running of the Bulls’

Hertfordshire Woman Among ‘Tortured Bulls’ Making Plea Ahead of Pamplona’s ‘Running of the Bulls’

Chorleywood, Hertfordshire – Ahead of the Running of the Bulls at the San Fermín festival Polly Foreman, 32, from Chorleywood, joined supporters of PETA and Spanish animal protection group AnimaNaturalis outside Pamplona’s City Hall to protest the torture of the 60 bulls who will be stabbed and slaughtered in the bullring after being forced to run through the city’s streets.

Representing a bull killed during the festival, Foreman stood covered in fake blood alongside nearly one hundred other “bloodied bulls,” while a protester portraying Jesus stood over them. Holding signs reading “Thou shalt not kill” and “Bullfighting is a sin,” the demonstrators called out the ritualised killing of animals at the heart of the festival, which honours the catholic Saint Fermin.

Photos from the action are available here (Please credit Esa Ennelin). Video footage is available here.

“There is nothing celebratory about chasing terrified bulls through the streets only to stab and kill them hours later,” says Polly Foreman. “I joined this protest to expose the cruelty behind the spectacle and urge people to reject this bloody event.”

Foreman is available for interviews.

In nature, bulls are calm, social individuals who love and protect their families. During the Running of the Bulls, terrified bulls are chased through Pamplona’s narrow cobblestone streets, where they risk crashing into barriers and walls, falling and breaking their legs, or colliding with one another. The same bulls are then killed in the bullring later that day – stabbed with lances and harpoon-like banderillas before a matador attempts to kill the animal by plunging a sword into his lungs or, if that fails, cutting his spinal cord with a knife. The bull may be paralysed but still conscious as his ears or tail are cut off as trophies.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a bull is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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