Animal rights activists are calling for an end to the famed Pamplona bull runs by releasing video of the doomed animals bleeding profusely – including from their noses and mouths, according to a report.
The campaigners from Animal Guardians and La Tortura No Es Cultura (Torture Is Not Culture) have recorded the event, in which 48 bulls run through the narrow streets of the Spanish city among hundreds of runners seeking a thrill.
In this year’s nine-day San Fermin festival, which ended Sunday, eight daredevils were gored by the half-ton, sharp-horned bulls.
The activists pointed to the fact that after the animals complete their runs, they are rounded up and sent to the bullring, where matadors subject them to agonizing wounds before finally killing them, according to Unilad.
In the gruesome footage, some of the bulls are seen vomiting blood through their nose and mouth as the matadors prolong their suffering by failing to deliver a coup de grace on their first attempt.
Marta Esteban of Animal Guardians said the few tourists who did make it to the bullring were horrified by the sight and left shortly afterward.
“Most only go to the running, they probably don’t even know that there are bullfights. Some go and come out shortly after – disgusted,” she said, according to Unilad.
“Our videographer had some Americans in front of him who did just that,” she continued. “We believe most tourists ignore that the running of the bulls implies suffering for the animals, but most of all they ignore that the bulls are then tortured and killed in the ring.”
Esteban added: “Spain has so much to offer: culture, nature, beaches, crazy parties like the Tomatina of Buñol… why go for something that implies atrocious suffering to these bulls? Why support something that your own country would never allow?”
Carmen Ibarlucea, from La Tortura No Es Cultura, implored people to stop taking part in the running of the bulls and to instead join together to help the animals.
“Let’s not abandon them to such a cruel fate,” she said.
Bullfights are protected under the Spanish constitution for cultural reasons, but support for the events – which kill about 7,000 animals a year in the country — is diminishing, with 56% fewer official fights last year than in 2007, the UK’s Independent reported.
Sixteen people have died in the Pamplona bull runs since 1910. The last death occurred in 2009, when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard in the neck, heart and lungs.
This year, Jaime Alvarez, 46, a lawyer from San Francisco, was gored at the end of the festival’s first run while trying to take a video selfie with his cellphone.
“It was like a truck or car just hitting me in the side of the head. I put my hand on my neck and I saw blood,” he told a US TV station from a Pamplona hospital, The Local reported.