Animal rights campaigners have called for a ban on the Spanish festival Toro de Jubilo (Joy of the Bull) in the small town of Medinaceli, where burning balls of tar are attached to the horns of a bull.
On Saturday, a bull collapsed in excruciating pain after his horns were set on fire at the start of the Spanish festival. In a video shared by the political party Animalist Party Against Mistreatment of Animals (PACMA), the bull is seen crying and panting with smoke around him before he collapses: “This is the exact moment in which the bull collapses, after an agonizing suffering.”
Every year, the festival takes place on the second weekend in November in the town of Medinaceli, where around 740 people live. PACMA said it is considering legal action against the organizers of the event.
“This grotesque tradition continues to be celebrated despite the fact that we are no longer in the Stone Age. The bull came out of the box with a bloody mouth and collapsed hyperventilating,” PACMA tweeted.
🔴 VERGÜENZA.
— PACMA (@PartidoPACMA) November 13, 2022
Imágenes del Toro Júbilo anoche, en Medinaceli. Esta esperpéntica tradición sigue celebrándose a pesar de que ya no estamos en la Edad de Piedra. El toro salió del cajón con la boca ensangrentada y se desplomó hiperventilando. La Guardia Civil nos echó. pic.twitter.com/6DKWfbWgyQ
Just before midnight on Saturday, a group of mainly men wearing matching grey uniforms dragged the bull into a temporary bullring set up in the main square of the town.
The men then tied the bull to a wooden pole and attached balls of highly flammable tar to his horns as hundreds of people watched behind fences. One man pulled on his tail to keep him from moving.
The men then set the tar balls on fire and released the bull. The crowd is cheering and celebrating as the bull is frantically shaking his head and racing around the square to try to get rid of the burning balls.
Some men jumped into the ring to act ‘courageous’ in front of the suffering bull. After twenty minutes, the balls on his horns went out, and the bull collapsed. He was then dragged out of the ring.
Jaime Posada of the animal rights group Anima Naturalis, also calling for a ban of the festival, said the bull is kept in a tight cage for hours before being dragged into the square: “He can’t move, he can hardly sit down, so he is already stressed simply from that.”
The festival is one of the main events for Medinaceli. PACMA and Anima Naturalis are calling on the regional government of Castilla and Leon, which has given the festival a special cultural status, to stop this form of extreme animal abuse.
Este es el momento exacto en que el toro se desploma, tras un agónico sufrimiento, en la celebración del Toro Jubilo en Medinaceli (Soria) este sábado.@alferma1, @jcyl, este festejo es una crueldad y no tiene cabida ya en nuestra sociedad. ¡Prohibidlo YA! pic.twitter.com/GQe6jK3BLh
— PACMA (@PartidoPACMA) November 14, 2022
This is the vilest shit I’ve seen in a while. His screams are heart-breaking and unbearable to hear… and these people are laughing and clapping? You got to have some sadistic mindset to allow that.
I am all for traditions, but not when they discriminate, abuse or torture and are not consent-based for other human beings or non-human beings.
How is this still a thing?