Experts Predict Coronavirus Pandemic Could Spell The End of Bullfighting
The infamous and cruel bullfighting industry has been struggling to stay afloat for many years - and now the pandemic could see the industry wiped out for good.
Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
Amid financial losses of millions of euros and fading public support, the bullfighting industry looks increasingly likely to be dealt a final blow by the coronavirus pandemic.
With the current lockdown cancelling the major bullfighting festivals including San Isidro, Sevilla’s April Fair, and Pamplona’s San Fermin in July, the Union of Breeders have estimated that the industry’s losses could be over 77 million euros if the full season continues to be cancelled.
Reuters reports that ranchers have already resorted to shipping hundreds of bulls to slaughterhouses. It takes around 5,000 euros to raise a fighting bull, but only if the events take place - meaning ranchers are in financial trouble by selling them straight to slaughter for 500 euros instead as butcher’s meat.
Speaking to Reuters, a bullfighter explained that “four or five thousand fighting bulls will go to the slaughterhouse this year without being fought and without giving us the revenue for which the brave bull is raised."
With the bullfighting industry in financial crisis like so many other businesses during the pandemic, the industry has asked the Spanish government for a huge financial bailout.
This predicament has brought the political issue of Spain’s bullfighting to the forefront once again, with an online petition already gathering over 100,000 signatures to urge the government not to spend taxpayer’s money on animal cruelty.
“It’s outrageous – particularly at this moment, when there are families that don’t have enough to eat and hospitals that have been decimated by cutbacks,” Aïda Gascón of animal rights groups AnimaNaturalis, told The Guardian. “Public funds should not be used to promote and pay for spectacles based on the abuse and mistreatment of animals.”
Whilst the infamous sport is only legal in just eight countries, around 250,000 bulls are killed in bullfights every year, and most bulls will suffer an agonizing death.
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