Photos: Herne Bay Activist Among ‘Dead Bulls’ Making Bloody Plea in Pamplona
Photos: Herne Bay Activist Among ‘Dead Bulls’ Making Bloody Plea in Pamplona
Herne Bay, Kent – Ahead of the Running of the Bulls at the San Fermín festival, Erika Danton, 25, from Herne Bay, joined supporters of PETA and Spanish animal protection group AnimaNaturalis who recreated the Pietà – Michelangelo’s depiction of the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Jesus Christ – but instead of Jesus, she was mourning a “dead bull”. Dozens of other “bloody bulls”, Danton among them, lay lifeless in a pile, wearing nothing but black underwear and “horns”.
Images are available here.
“Many people coming to Pamplona for the San Fermín festival have no idea of the horrors that await the animals forced to participate,” says Danton. “Torturing bulls has no place in a Catholic celebration – or elsewhere. I’m proud to join PETA and AnimaNaturalis to urge everyone to boycott bullfights. It’s time for this archaic spectacle to end for good.”
Every year, tens of thousands of bulls are slaughtered in bullfighting festivals held in honour of Catholic saints, like San Fermín. The doctrine of the Catholic Church clearly states that we should not “cause animals to suffer or die needlessly”. As Pope Francis declared in the 2015 Laudato si’, “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity’.” Yet, the Catholic Church’s ties to the ritualised execution of bulls make a mockery of Christ’s teachings of kindness and compassion.
In Pamplona, the bulls are chased through the city streets, where they risk crashing into barriers and walls, falling and breaking their legs, or colliding with each other. Then, in the bullring, men taunt and stab each bull with a lance and several harpoon-like banderillas before the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword. A knife is then used to cut his spinal cord. More than 125 Spanish towns and cities have declared themselves against bullfighting. PETA has previously offered Pamplona’s mayor €298,000 to cancel the Running of the Bulls – an offer that still stands.
Erika Danton is available for interviews.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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