Bullfighting: The Bulls of Andalusia

In my last post I wrote about my recent trip to beautiful and historic Portugal and Spain. I mentioned cobblestone streets of Alfama, the gorgeous castles of Sintra, the picturesque whitewashed hilltop towns of Andalusia, The Prado, paella, olives, and wine. That was all good. That was all beyond great. But, then there were the bulls.

To the world, Spain is known for its bullfights. But, within Spain itself, bullfighting is controversial. In Andalusia, the heartland of Spanish bullfighting, the matador is a hero of mythological proportion and the bullfight is thought of as high art and part of the Spanish national heritage. Catalonia, on the other hand, banned bullfighting in 2010, only to see that ban overturned by the Spanish Constitutional Court in 2016. Spanish progressives view bullfighting as a brutal holdover from the days of the Franco dictatorship while those on the right call bullfighting the “national fiesta” and an important component of Spanish culture.

If you read my blog regularly, you know where I stand on the weird but common fetish for violent human-on-animal or animal-on-animal conflicts that end in the death of the animal. But do you know where you stand? Maybe you haven’t given bullfighting a lot of thought. Maybe you think of it as just this thing that happens in Spain. England has Wimbledon, Germany has Octoberfest, and Spain has bullfights. Familiarity fosters complacency.

To remove the dust of familiarity from our examining lens, let’s cross the Atlantic and take a look at another “fiesta.” The village of Citilcum, in southern Mexico, celebrates a yearly festival called “Kots Kaal Pato.” As part of the celebration, small wild animals like iguanas and opossums are captured and hung from a rope. The entire village turns out to watch participants take turns beating the animals to death with sticks. If any animal manages to escape from the rope, it is chased by the spectators who joyously trample it to death. In the grand finale a live duck is hung from a high rope by its feet. Participants jump and try to grab the duck and the winner is the person who manages to rip off the duck’s head.

Many within and outside of Mexico have tried to end this unquestionably barbaric practice. The citizens of Citilcum argue that this festival has been celebrated by their grandparents and their grandparents’ grandparents. It is tradition; part of their culture. Destroying the festival would destroy their heritage, they say. I don’t buy that argument. We are all capable of moving away from barbarity.

Let’s move our lens back to bullfights. A terrified bull is chased into an arena, sometimes after first being terrorized in the streets by crowds of overly-exuberant, and sometimes drunken revelers. The bull is tortured by being repeatedly stabbed, and after a vain attempt to defend himself, he is ultimately murdered with a sword. All for the unbridled gratification of a large, boisterous, blood-lusting audience. When you remove the pageantry, costumes, and choreography, it is animal slaughter for amusement. The bull suffers, bleeds and dies? Well, that’s showbiz! Is there any difference between stabbing a bull to death and ripping off a duck’s head for entertainment? I don’t see it. If you do and would like to explain it to me, there’s a comment section at the end of this post.

The Plaza de Toros (bullring) in Ronda, Spain

While in the Andalusian region of Spain, my tour group spent a day as guests of a family that raises bulls for the ring. They hospitably served a meal in their beautiful home and later drove us through their expansive pastures so we could see their herds of handsome black cattle grazing. The beef industry could take lessons from the way these animals are raised. If they were slaughtered for meat in a compassionate manner, it would be one of the most humane beef production ranches on the planet. But, nope. That’s not the fate these bulls face. These bulls get trucked around Spain to arenas and then get the full gauntlet—terror, torture, and death in the midst of a crowd of crazed humans.

An Andalusian bull calf with his mom and the herd.

You may be thinking, “Okay, Randy, this bull thing is bad stuff, but how is that pertinent? I came here looking for chicken stories. And bulls, by-the-way, are not chickens.” And I reply, “Chickens and bulls are indeed different animals. That is both a true statement and an astute observation. But they are similar in that they are both domesticated animals and dependent upon us, the human race, for their humane care.”

I write about and you care about chickens. We all want good, humane lives for chickens on commercial farms and are invested in the loving care of the birds in our backyards. We can’t expect good lives for chickens until all domestic animals are treated with the same humane respect.

And what else? Well, cockfighting. I’ve covered that topic before. It’s not all that surprising that cockfighting is legal in Andalusia—one of only two areas on the entire continent of Europe where it is still allowed. The laws currently on the books stipulate that betting can’t occur during the cockfights, but it has been reported that it certainly does. The laws also mandate that the fights must be private events and not public exhibitions. So, who do you suppose is supporting the “sport” of two roosters ripping each other to shreds at these private parties? Did you guess the bullfighting community? You are correct, obviously.

Two gamecocks square off in Cai Be, Vietnam (Photo by Tuyen Nguyen - used with permission)

I suggested at the top of this article that Spain is divided on bullfighting. In a poll conducted by the Spanish news website El Espanol in 2019, the majority of those polled, over 56%, were anti-bullfighting. 24.7% were pro-bullfighting and 18.9% were indifferent. While Spain remains divided on bullfighting, there has been a legal backlash against the anti-bullfighting movement, and the Spanish Congress recently enshrined into law the concept that bullfighting was part of Spain’s national identity. Bullfighting, the argument goes, is part of the culture. Banning bullfighting would destroy part of Spain’s heritage. As I mentioned before, I don’t buy that argument. Iguana beating, fox hunting, dog fighting, cat burning, badger tossing, bull fighting, bear baiting, and duck decapitating are all part of our innately weird human history. All have been practiced for long periods of time by various cultures around the world. They are components of the barbaric side of our heritage. But, we are all capable of moving away from barbarity. We really are. And we don’t need bullfights. We really don’t need them.