Irish group to protest against 'barbaric bloodsport' of Pamplona bull run

The Irish Council Against Blood Sports has appealed to Irish holidaymakers travelling to Spain to boycott “the barbaric bloodsport of bullfighting”.

Members of the animal welfare group will be protesting at the entrance to Dublin Airport this Friday from 12.30pm onwards.

One person was gored twice by a fighting bull and two people suffered other injuries in the second bull run of Pamplona's San Fermin festival today.

The man was gored in the leg and back in Pamplona's bull ring at the end of the run and was treated by doctors on the scene before being taken to a city hospital, the San Fermin press office said.

Details of his condition or identity were not immediately released.

Hospital and Red Cross officials had initially said they had no reports of gorings in the run, which lasted two minutes and 14 seconds.

One Spaniard was taken to hospital with rib injuries while a Frenchman was treated for multiple bruises, but later released.

Two Americans and a Briton were gored and eight others injured in the first run yesterday. All but the two Americans were released the same day.

One American still in hospital was Mike Webster, a 38-year-old occupational therapist from Gainesville, Florida, who was gored in the armpit as he joined the bull-run in Pamplona for the 38th time in 11 years.

He said he has not decided whether he will run again.

“We hear stories of people gored, yet we never hear about the horrific cruelty and deaths meted out to the animals in the bullring after they are stampeded through the streets, surrounded by screaming crowds who goad and harass them,” a statement from the Irish Council Against Blood Sports read.

“To these thoughtless people, it's a so-called ‘extreme sport’ that they get a ‘high’ from. They know the risks they take, but the bulls have no choice in the matter – they are bound for torture and death.”

The nationally televised 8am run sees people racing with six bulls and their guiding steer along a narrow 930-yard (850-metre) course from a holding pen to the city bull ring. The bulls are then killed in bullfights each afternoon.

[comment] Pic: PETA.org[/comment]

The nine-day fiesta in Pamplona, which features 24-hour street partying, was made famous in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises and attracts thousands of foreign tourists.

Bull runs are a traditional part of summer festivals across Spain. Dozens are injured each year, mostly in falls.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK director Mimi Bekhechi also condemned the practice.

“The Running of the Bulls is a shameful, barbaric spectacle of mostly drunken men who deliberately harass, terrify and cause injury to animals,” she said.

“In the lead-up to this notorious event, bulls are confined to small dark enclosures overnight before being forced out into a menacing crowd in the streets, often through the use of electric shock prods. As the bulls try to get their bearings after being momentarily blinded by the sunlight, runners hit them with rolled-up newspapers and other objects.

“It’s no secret that the animals panic, literally run for their lives, and often lose their footing and slam their bodies into walls, sometimes breaking bones and otherwise injuring themselves, or into people in their desperate attempt to flee from their attackers.”

Two men died recently after being gored by bulls in Spanish festivals - one on Saturday in the eastern town of Grao de Castellon and another on June 24 in the south-western town of Coria.

In all, 15 people have died from gorings in Pamplona since record-keeping began in 1924 for the festival.