Australians Injured at Running of the Bulls, Bulls Barbarically Killed

Two Australian tourists have been injured during the final bull run of this year’s San Fermín festival in Spain. The tourists and one Spaniard were taken to hospitalwith thigh, armpit, and arm wounds, none of them life threatening, according to The Sun.

The bulls, who were later tormented and killed in the bullring, were not so fortunate.

Running To Their Deaths

Each morning of the San Fermín festival, a rocket is launched to terrify six bulls – who are naturally high strung and skittish – so that they’ll charge into city streets lined by screaming tourists. The panicked animals slip and slide down the narrow streets and often smash into walls, sustaining broken bones and other injuries.

It’s hardly the first time humans have been injured during the Running of the Bulls, and a runner was even killed in 2009. The entire spectacle is really a death march.

Each bull who is made to run will end up in the bullring and be repeatedly speared and stabbed before a matadorattempts to sever his spine with a dagger. Sometimes, the bull drowns in his own blood before the dagger comes into play. Other times, he’s still alive as his broken, bleeding body is dragged out of the arena and left to await slaughter.

Protesters Create Bullfighting ‘Crime Scene’

Many of the tourists who go to Pamplona to run with the bulls every year have no idea about this cruelty. If they did, many of them would probably run the other way.

Yet tourism is one of the main reasons why barbaric bullfighting continues in Spain, as more Australians and New Zealanders than Pamplonans take part in this cruel spectacle.

This year, activists from around the world, including Australia, staged a protest in Pamplona city centre. They lay down inside outlines of bulls with “banderillas” – the stabbing weapons used during bullfights – sticking out of their backs to remind onlookers that bulls are suffering and dying for human entertainment.

22-year-old Jennifer Bossinger from Victoria, Australia.

What You Can Do for Bulls

Many spectators at bullfights are horrified by what they see and would never have bought a ticket if they’d known how violent it would be.

By that point, though, it’s too late: the bullfighting industry has already pocketed the money, and the bull has endured a torturous, ritualistic death that no amount of remorse can undo.

Join us in asking the mayor of Pamplona to end the Running of the Bulls now.

Save the Bulls

Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals