“Bulls feel pain and fear just as humans do, yet in the bullring they’re terrorised, mutilated, and barbarically slaughtered in front of jeering crowds,” says PETA Vice President for Europe Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA urges compassionate people everywhere to join Sir Paul McCartney in taking a stand against these bloody, merciless spectacles.”
In nature, bulls are calm, social individuals who are protective of their fellow herd members. During bullfights, assailants on horses drive lances into a bull’s back and neck before others plunge banderillas into his back. When the bull becomes weak from blood loss, a matador attempts to kill the animal by plunging a sword into his lungs. A knife is used to cut his spinal cord. The bull may be paralysed but still conscious as his ears or tail are cut off and presented to the matador as a trophy and his body is dragged from the arena. Tens of thousands are slaughtered this way annually in bullfighting festivals around the world.
International condemnation of bullfighting has continued to grow, including in Spain, where 93% of young people say they don’t support the cruel spectacles. More than 100,000 PETA supporters have urged Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to ban bullfighting.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
