Why bullfighting is good

They claim the fight is festive, artistic, and a fair competition between skill and force. What they do not reveal is that the bull never has a chance to defend himself, much less survive. Many prominent former bullfighters report that the bull is intentionally debilitated with tranquilizers and laxatives, beatings to the kidneys, petroleum jelly rubbed into their eyes to blur vision, heavy weights hung around their neck for weeks before the fight, and confinement in darkness for hours before being released into the bright arena.

A well-known bullfight veterinarian, Dr. Manuel Sanz, reports that in more than 90 percent of bulls killed in fights had their horns "shaved" before the fight.

Horn shaving involves sawing off several inches of the horns so the bull misses his thrusts at the altered angle. The matador, two picadors on horses, and three men on foot stab the bull repeatedly when he enters the ring.

After the bull has been completely weakened by fear, blood loss, and exhaustion, the matador attempts to make a clean kill with a sword to the heart.

Unfortunately for the suffering bull, the matador rarely succeeds and must make several thrusts, often missing the bull's heart and piercing his lungs instead. Often a dagger must be used to cut the spinal cord and spare the audience the sight of a defenseless animal in the throes of death. The bull may still be fully conscious but paralyzed when his ears and tail are cut off as the final show of "victory.

Mexican bullfighting has an added feature: novillada, or baby bullfights. There is no ritual in this slaughter of calves. Baby bulls, some no more than a few weeks old, are brought into a small arena where they are stabbed to death by spectators, many of whom are children. These bloodbaths end with spectators hacking off the ears and tail of the often fully conscious calf lying in his own blood. At any rate, Wolff points out an undisputed fact: the conditions of industrial slaughterhouses are not better than the conditions of the bullring during corridas.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Without bullfighting, bull farms would give way to intensive and industrial agriculture. Wolff is right to claim that bullfighting does contribute to the preservation of the wilderness.

But, he is wrong to think bullfighting is the only way it can be done. For that reason, in Spain, bullfighting stands on subsidies. Those subsidies could be redirected towards the preservation of natural parks where bulls roam freely as they now do , but without having to kill them in a public spectacle.

Wolff also believes that were bullfighting banned, the fighting bull breed would disappear. Fighting bulls would mix with other cattle breeds, and the fighting breed would die out.

In that sense, bullfighting protects biodiversity. Again, he is wrong, because governments could step in to protect and subsidize wildernesses as it, in fact, happens with natural parks that host endangered species in many other countries. In those natural parks, fighting bulls could be preserved. Be that as it may, there is no need to fully subscribe a defense of biodiversity. Preserving species and subspecies is a moral good, but not at all costs. If in order to preserve a breed or subspecies, we must torture members of that breed or subspecies, then there is no moral justification for this.

Let us use this simile. Suppose that, in the name of biodiversity, we wish to preserve the genetic stock of members of the Mbuti tribe in Congo. It's cruel and barbaric. Imagine being born and raised to be killed in front of a crowd and an man in fancy clothes. Bull fighting is a fair way of killing a bull.

It is a quick kill and the bull is sold for meat afterwards. Compared to slaughterhouses and other places where bulls are killed, this is a cleaner but longer way of killing a bull. I believe that if you don't like bullfighting and think that it is "inhumane" then yu should stay out of it.

Bullfighting is a beautiful form of art that expresses effort and courage, and also, a bull that is destined to a bullring has a longer and more quality life in luxurious farms, and anyway, if bullfighting is banned, the bulls will still be killed in a slaughterhouse, where they are killed in large numbers, in a way more cruel way.

If they are so confident and proud of being bullfighters, then why do they try to talk down the number of bulls killed each year. This great article forgets to mention Forcados, a group of toureiros from Portugal that tries to catch the bull by the horns and tail with bare hands. They only get pounded around in the process and do absolutelly no harm to the beast.

Another argument in favour is that vegetarians also torture living beings each time they spear a fork into a vegetable to eat it. It's not a Portuguese tradition and it's even forbidden in Portugal except in Barrancos, a former spanish city. So when trying to ban Touradas you are all trying to end also a thousands-age tradition that does less harm to people than boxing. And promoting the extinction of Touros Bravos, a rare type of bull that still only exists in the wild thanks to the Touradas.

And Americans still practice human sacrifice, in the name of something, each time US goes to enforce peace somewhere. For me it's an art form but I agree that It's not a painting. Some parts may even be viewed as cruel, taken out of context. I myself do not like to see bandarilhas to spear the bull with colorful irons It's like eating cats and dogs, wouldn't cross my mind to eat them but i can see it's a cultural limitation, cause I like rabbits or pigs and they are pets too.

We are all trying to impose our views of the world to others. I liked the gladiator argument though, it really makes one question his beliefs Animalists treat pets as humans, something they are not but it's up to them.

For me It's way too fundamentalist. It would make more sense to focus in the billions of cows butchered without any honour in the slaughterhouses, instead of raging against the harmless Pega de Caras the masterpiece of Forcados Westerns eat the Hindus sacred cows Not that I want it that way, to prevent some misunderstandings.

I just say it how it is. Cows get butchered after they gave all the milk and gave bith to the calves. Normal bulls get slaughtered after years of life.

Fighting bulls live a year or two longer, they are between years of age when they get to the bullring. Now the most important thing: is bullfighting a needless cruelty? Is the slaughterhouse more humane to the bovines? Hell no, it is much worse. Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse?