• Annual ‘bulls on fire’ festival caused animal ‘tremendous stress, anxiety’
• Bull believed to have suffered head injuries, burns to corneas during spectacle
Animal-rights activistas from Spain’s Partido Animalista (PACMA) have denounced what they called “13 minutes of torture” inflicted on a bull in the annual Toro Jubilo festival in the town of Medinaceli, Castilla-León, releasing video footage showing the mud-smeared bull careening about in obvious distress as it tried to free itself from burning fires attached to its horns (see video below).
In a statement, PACMA said the animal was subjected to “tremendous stress and anxiety” and is thought to have suffered injuries to its head and was blinded as a result of burns to its corneas before being taken directly to the local slaughterhouse immediately after the event.
The Toro Jubilo festival, celebrated locally and attended by hundreds of onlookers each year on the night of 12th-13th november, is the last of the “bulls on fire” festivals to be celebrated in Castilla-León and has its roots in Spain’s pre-Christian era.
Despite protests from animal-rights activists each year, the festival is protected against abolishment as national patrimony and part of Spanish culture and is only subject to regulation under the local laws of Castilla-León. Festival organisers try to prevent animal-rights groups from viewing the spectacle, but this year PACMA activists managed to get past right security to film the event.
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