Photos: Colourful Celebration Marks Cancellation of Bullfights in Pamplona

For Immediate Release:

7 July 2020

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

Photos: Colourful Celebration Marks Cancellation of Bullfights in Pamplona

PETA and AnimaNaturalis Call For a Permanent End to Bull Runs and Bullfighting

Pamplona, Spain – To mark the cancellation of this year’s Running of the Bulls, members of PETA and Spanish animal protection group AnimaNaturalis – some with bulls painted on their chests, others dressed in all-white running outfits –  gathered in Pamplona today, which would’ve been the first day of the infamous bull runs. The protesters broke “banderillas” (props that simulated decorated darts used to plunge into the bull’s neck and shoulders) containing multi-coloured powdered paint above their heads to signal what they hope is the start of a new era in Spain – one without bullfighting. Banners read, “No More Deaths. End Bullfighting.”

© EsaEnnelin

Photos from the action are available here, here, here, and here.

“It’s past time to put an end to events in which bulls are chased, tormented, speared, and stabbed – in Pamplona and elsewhere,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “We’re calling for a permanent end to cruel bull runs and the gruesome spectacle of bullfighting so that the San Fermín festival can have a compassionate future.”

“[O]f all the things that people will miss this year, bullfighting is not one of them,” says AnimaNaturalis Director Aïda Gascón Bosch. “Ninety-five per cent of the Spanish population does not attend this type of spectacle, but we all pay [for it] with public money.”

In Pamplona, terrified bulls are forced to run along narrow streets on their way to a violent death in the bullring, often slipping and sliding along the way. Once there, men taunt, exhaust, and stab each bull with a lance and several harpoon-like banderillas until he becomes weakened from blood loss. Then, the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword, and if the bull doesn’t die straight away, other weapons are used to cut his spinal cord. Many bulls are paralysed but still conscious as their ears or tail are cut off to be given to the matador as trophies.

Earlier this summer, PETA offered Pamplona’s mayor €250,000 if he would commit to permanently ending the cruel bull runs and subsequent bullfights.

Note: Protesters observed social-distancing protocols.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

A download link for high-resolution images is available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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