Bluetongue disease may shut down bullfighting - NYT 4/10/05

[Guest guest]

I found this article of interest in light of the recent passing of Pope

John Paul II -- considering that in the 1500's, Pope Pius V banned bull

fighting because it was too barbaric and encouraged gambling. Too bad

that the latest Pope did not have a "culture of life" that extended the

same degree of compassion -- but at least cutting down Spain's

bullfighting for the year seems to be a side benefit of the sheep's

bluetongue disease.

 

Also see the April 2004 BBC article on the banning of bullfighting in

Barcelona. Is Samba or anyone else from Spain still on this conference?

Any comments?

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

***************************

 

New York Times:

April 10, 2005

 

A Disease Devastating to Sheep Threatens Spanish Bullfighting

 

By RENWICK McLEAN

 

 

MADRID, April 9 - Some Spaniards may soon have to prepare for the

unthinkable: a summer without bullfighting.

 

Instead of traveling to the ring this season, many of Spain's mighty

bulls are being confined to the ranch under a quarantine aimed at

halting the spread of a disease known as bluetongue.

 

The illness rarely harms cattle, but can be devastating to sheep, which

are a major part of Spain's $9 billion livestock industry, causing

fevers and internal bleeding. The government suspects ranches that

produce fighting bulls of harboring the infection, and has ordered 60

percent of the them quarantined.

 

"The current measures would create the gravest crisis we have ever

known," Enrique Garza Grau, secretary general of the National

Association of Organizers of Bullfighting Spectacles, said in an

interview. "If they are not modified, we wouldn't be able to carry out

even 50 percent of the events that are scheduled."

 

Bullfighting is a wildly popular national spectacle that supporters call

the very essence of Spanish culture, a tradition that binds a

historically fragmented collection of regions into one country and that

predates Spain itself. As a result, any threat is taken very seriously.

 

In March, during the first top-level bullfight of the season at the

prestigious Plaza de Toros Las Ventas arena in Madrid, fans said they

thought the government was siding unfairly with the sheep. The disease

"doesn't affect the bulls, it doesn't affect people," said Rafael

Manzanalo, 50, a Madrid native who said he rarely missed a bullfight at

Las Ventas.

 

Mr. Manzanalo said it was absurd to let the disease threaten the season.

"Bullfights went on even during the civil war," he said, referring to

the conflict that ravaged this country from 1936 to 1939.

 

The government has said that the quarantine may be broken so that the

bulls can travel to fights, but only under conditions that industry

officials say are prohibitively expensive for many organizers,

particularly those who put on the thousands of minor events in small

cities and rural areas each year.

 

"Bullfighting is a very expensive spectacle," Mr. Garza said. "You have

to rent the plaza, pay the salary of the matadors, buy the bulls."

 

The additional costs of following the government's safety measures,

which include a requirement that the bull carcasses be destroyed

immediately after the fights rather than sold as meat, would make it

impossible for small events to cover debts, dealing a major blow to the

industry, officials said. The other requirement is that organizers buy

all the dozen or so bulls that travel to a fight, not just the six that

are usually killed in the ring. All the animals have to be destroyed

immediately after the fight. "These small events make up the heart of

bullfighting," said Jaime Sebastián de Erice, secretary general of the

Bullfighting Breeders Union . "This is where promising talent develops,"

he said, "where the whole tradition of the bull is most firmly rooted

and clearly expressed."

 

Bluetongue, which can kill up to 50 percent of the sheep in infected

flocks, has not appeared on mainland Spain in more than 40 years,

although it was detected on the Balearic Islands in 2000. It is not

harmful to humans.

 

The name comes from the rare cases when the disease turns the tongues of

infected animals blue. Bluetongue is transmitted mainly by mosquitoes,

which are most active in the summer, the peak of the bullfighting

season. That puts the government in the unenviable position of trying to

balance the interests of the fighting bulls, which represent a tradition

that is nearly sacred in some parts of society, with those of sheep.

 

In defending the steps they have taken to combat the spread of

bluetongue, government officials say that they are committed to

interfering as little as possible with the bullfighting season, but they

emphasize that they have an obligation to safeguard the interests of the

entire Spanish livestock industry, not just those of the fighting bulls.

 

Spaniards spend more than $1 billion a year to watch an estimated 17,000

bullfights, industry officials say, making the fights more popular than

any of the country's spectator sports except for soccer.

 

"Our literature, our paintings, all of our artistic expressions are

influenced by the world of the bull," Mr. Garza said. "It is a cultural

spectacle, not a sport. It explains who we are."

 

Few people in Spain make similar claims about the sheep industry. Mr.

Sebastián de Erice of the breeders' union said he respected the need to

protect the sheep, but added that the value of the fighting bulls to

Spanish heritage entitled them to better treatment than they were

getting. "There appears to be a growing desire to ignore the effects of

these measures on a tradition that is part of the essence of Spain," he

said. "We are not going to let that happen."