Blood Fiestas
Comment
Blood Fiestas involve the systematic torture and/or killing of animals for entertainment and as such should be stopped.
Where Blood Fiestas take place
Blood Fiestas take place in many villages throughout Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil etc. each year.
The animals used
The vast majority use cattle; Bulls, cows and calves from the bullfighting herds.
Blood Fiestas with cattle are classified as bullfighting.
In the case of Spain, Bullfighting and Blood Fiestas are promoted and regulated under their National Bullfighting Law.
The number of Blood Fiestas (in Spain)
At least ten thousand but up to 20 thousand or more Blood Fiestas take place.
The villages are supposed to obtain a license to hold a Blood Fiesta. This is to ensure that various crowd safety rules are complied with or that the village has sufficient accident insurance etc. and this all costs money. Therefore there are a number unlicensed fiestas.
Consequently it is impossible to get an accurate figure and all figures have to be guessed at. The figure of 15,000 has been quoted in the Spanish national press but it has also been quoted that there are 2,000 fire bulls in the Province of Valencia alone.
The worst of all the fiestas for cruelty are those using cows, bulls or calves.
A cow, calf or bull used in a blood fiesta can die from stabbing, strangulation, spearing, and multiple injuries. It can be thrown down from a height, deliberately and repeatedly knocked down by a car or tractor, or drowned.
Before it dies it can suffer rape by sticks or metal spikes, live castration, have its horns, tails and ears ripped off, be blinded or burned.
It's torture can last to up to five hours.
Other Animals used
After cattle, chickens are the next most used creatures in Blood Fiestas a few other animals are also used such as pigs, geese, ducks, donkeys, squirrels, rabbits, pigeons etc.
Chickens are tied to a rope
Chickens are hung by their feet from a rope, and decapitated by either a sword, which is often blunt and the chicken is not killed immediately or they have their heads pulled off manually.
Chickens buried in a box and head hacked off
Another variation on this is to bury the birds in a box or in the earth with just their heads sticking up, then they are beaten to death or their heads hacked off with swords.
Ducks have their wings clipped and are thrown into a river or the sea and dozens of swimmers try to catch them. The birds can be pulled apart in the tug of war.
Geese are strung up by their feet and have their heads pulled off manually.
Pigeons and squirrels are placed in earthenware pots and suspended from a very high pole, the pots are stoned until they break and the birds and animals fall out alive or dead.
The most famous goat fiesta is that of Manganeses de la Polvorosa where a goat was thrown from a church tower. If a goat survived the ordeal, it was killed and eaten afterwards. There many protests, also Ministry of the Interior orders forbidding the fiesta, but the village defied them and the practise continued until January 2000.
The most notorious donkey fiesta is at Villanueva de la Vera where Vicki managed to get two donkeys out, the famous Blackie and another donkey called José.
The animal used in 1986, was killed by drowning it in the village fountain.
No donkey has been killed since then, but the animal always has a bad ordeal in the hour and a half it is on the streets.
Pigs are greased and set loose to be caught by crowds of men, the animal is nearly always badly injured in the struggle and sometimes they are pulled and crushed so badly they literally burst.
Some have been stopped
Due to pressure from animal rights groups such as FAACE (Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe), ANPBA Asociación Nacional para la Protección y el Bienestar de los Animales and IAC (INITAITIVE ANTI-CORRIDA) and new laws, some villages have abandoned chicken fiestas and now use dead/metal/splastic chickens or no chickens.