Fury as bull fights bulldozer during Granada fiesta
THE regional government has launched an investigation after a bulldozer was used during a bullfight at a local fiesta.
The crowd looked on in horror as the ten-tonne earth moving machine entered the ring after the bull had refused to fight the human matador.
In a video captured by a member of the audience, the bulldozer is seen chasing the animal around the ring in a bid to get it to leave.
The animal retaliates by charging the machine with its horns, before the bulldozer attempts to scoop the bull up into its front bucket.
The crowd jeers as the machine is replaced by the matador, who kills the tiring animal.
Now the regional government is promising swift action against those who ordered the machine to enter the ring in Piñar, Granada.
“This is a reprehensible and intolerable act that should never have been allowed,” said Jesús Huertas, the provincial delegate for the Junta de Andalucía.
“We are going to deal with this firmly and forcefully to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”
The council of the small town has denied any involvement, insisting the decision for the machine to be used was taken by a member of the Guardia Civil police force as a safety measure after the bull refused to fight.
But the Olive Press understands Piñar could be barred from holding any future bullfighting events. The Junta can veto any application for a bullfight if past breaches of regulations exist.
The horrific scenes, which occurred during the Santa Monica festival on May 3, left many spectators appalled.
One said how she felt sickened when she saw the machine enter the ring and chase the animal.
“Everybody around me was screaming and saying how cruel it was,” Manuela Fernández told local newspaper Granada Hoy.
Animal rights experts in Spain and abroad have called for tough action against both the fiesta organisers and the Junta.
A spokesman for the National Association for the Defence of Animals said the ultimate responsibility laid with the regional government.
“The blame for this rests with the Junta de Andalucía. These degrading scenes must not be forgotten.”
Alyx Dow, the anti-bullfighting programmes officer of the UK-based World Society for the Protection of Animals said: “We are appalled that the organizers of this festival have found yet another way of causing unnecessary and extreme pain to the bull. The decision to bring a bulldozer into the ring is a sad demonstration of the disregard of the animal’s welfare. There can be no excuse for this.”
Critic Anabel Alvarez, who commentates on bullfights for national radio station Cope, said the organisers were left with “no choice” after the animal refused to fight. “It is surreal to watch. I have never seen this happen before. Although something like this does not belong in a bullring, what else could they do?”
Matador talks of “shame”
THE matador who eventually killed the bull that was chased around the ring by a bulldozer has spoken of his shame at what happened.
Granada-born Nicolás López, or El Nico as he is known in the ring, said he did not order the machine to enter the ring after the animal had refused to engage in tradition combat.
“I killed the animal because I had to put a stop to what was going on,” the bullfighter said.
A crowd witnessed the horrific scenes in Piñar, Granada, when the machine entered the ring – temporarily erected for the Santa Monica fiesta in early May – in a bid to get the animal to leave the ring.
This was after the bull had refused to fight El Nico.
“What happened was when the bull came out, it just stood there. It did not want to do anything,” he said.
The matador exited the ring to be replaced by the machine.
“When I saw what was happening I went back. My colleagues thought I was crazy. They told me I would get gored. The animal was suffering. It was shameful.
“I tried to kill the animal in the most dignified manner possible, considering what had gone on. The crowd wanted me to cut its ears off (the crowd’s sign of respect towards the matador), but I refused. I just did what I had to do. The bullfighters had nothing to do with this,” he said.
How cultured the Spanish are! Such a proud nation. Another example to demonstrate the gulf in intelligence between them and the rest of Europe.
They all clamour to criticise, but I wonder what punishment the digger driver faces now … bugger all I expect. What he deserves is the same fate as the bull … and so do the organisers of that shameful debacle!
Ban this ‘sport’ NOW!!
I am horrified at the Sick Cruelty of this Sick |Nation. They are cruel to all Animals in this sick awful village that we live in. We are leaving Spain and going back to the UK i have seen and heard enough, they Cock fight , tie dogs up for hours in the heat or shut into outbuildings for hours on end, loads of starving dogs around and also dogs run over and left in middle of roads.
A SICK LOT!!!
i m horrified by this cruel nation
i want to go in this country for to fight those attrocities until it will be stopped
we can t stay without do nothing all the europe must stopped this with the law
if somebody can help me for to change this?
Disgraceful behaviour in a country that considers itself to be part of Europe. There is more culture in a pot of yoghurt than in the whole of Andalucia.
how awful for the bull,it is a sick country,time the europeans,did something about it,starving dogs left all day tied up in the blazing sun with no water.i going back to uk as soon as i can,they are barbareans
AS neither the matador, the President or the crowd approved of the action by the digger driver I do not see how this reflects on bullfighting generally. It was an isolated, though stupid incident.
Or possibly the comments above come from people who have never seen a corrida, and are just naturally biased or bigoted and full of their own importance?
Incidentally good riddance to Linda, we do not need your attitude here. I feel sorry for the people of any country that lets you in, having to put up with your pathetic view of your own moral superiority.
Also I presume MikeDC has never been to Spain, let alone Andalucia, so why comment?
I am proud to be HUMAN with feelings LES HART i could say a lot more but must be a lot more dignified and humane than you.
Writing this from the UK having just returned from Spain. What a pathetic individual Les Hart is. He’s one good reason NOT to go to Spain. They are just a bunch of loud ill mannered individuals who fall way behind the rest of Europe. Having just been to Catalonia they treated the dogs there just so badly. Never fed never given any water. WE did it and they were such great dogs.
Well done Linds. A great comment
I don’t agree with bullfighting but I think it important to remember that we are guests in Spain of the Spanish people. I have found most Spaniards very tolerant indeed of the northern European invasion of their country; far more tolerant than most British are about immigration into the UK. If, as immigrants, we don’t like certain aspects of Spanish life or if we find the Spanish people intolerable we should simply leave.
I CAME TO SPAIN AS I DO LIKE THE SPANISH PEOPLE, AM AM NOT A RACIST EITHER, THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE IF WE LIVE AND LET LIVE THAT IS MY MOTTO. I HAVE MIXED RACE IN MY FAMILY. THE ONLY PROBLEM I HAVE IS CRUELTY TO DEFENCELESS ANIMALS, ESPECIALLY THE DOGS BEING CRUELY TREATED, WHY HAVE THEM IF YOU CAN NOT GIVE THEM THE BASIC INGREDIENT OF ALL. WATER!!!! CAN ANYONE OUT THERE COMPRENDO!!!!!!
It is a shame this has happened and it has put a dark cloud over the whole of Spain.
Shame on you
I am sick and tired of people like Nicholas Murphy saying that we are guests in Spain and therefore have no right to make any comment on the cruel way animals are treated here. I have lived in Spain for 28 years. I have always paid my taxes here, so if I am a guest at least I am a paying guest.
If Mr Murphy saw a child being tortured, no matter in which country this happened, would he stand by and say: “I am a guest here, so I must not say or do anything”? Surely not. So why is it any different to protest if we see animal cruelty.
Spain joined the European Union and has done very well out of this. Now it is pay-back time and they should learn to behave like proper Europeans.
In most European countries, if you tortured an animal the way bulls (and horses) are tortured in a bullfight, you would be prosecuted, fined and possibly put in prison.
The bullfight (a misnomer if ever there was one, as the bull never wins, so where is the “fight”?) is a disgrace and a national shame. We must all do our utmost to get as much publicity against this barbaric, outdated spectacle. A large part of Spain’s revenue comes from tourism, so the more foreigners protest the more likely it is this will bring them to their senses.
Luckily many Spanish people are against this horrendous practice as well. If you google “anti taurino” you will see that there are several Spanish organizations working hard to get the corrida banned.
I not a guest in Spain any more returned from the cruel **** village we lived in, and by the way, we the Brits who have lived in Spain as Guests as has been wrote here have paid out lots of money and our council tax etc, the same as the Spanish!
Are all the foreighners guests in the UK too right as half of them are illegal!!!
Shame the bull didnt survive – could have sent it to see Les Hart
I bet whatever you want when I state, that the spectators where probably even enjoying the cruelty done to the bull. See others suffer, preferably weak and defenseless creatures, makes them feel better and distracts them for a few minutes from there own misery. I´ve never seen such cruelty on animals as I do here in Granada. Dogs and cats are dumped continuously in the mountains, donkeys have to life in very small front yards in the boiling heat, dogs left alone during the whole day tied up outside and going nuts by barking themselves into a coma and the bull fights are nothing else than a recharge station for testosterone overdosed machos ibericos, which most of the time sulk like offended princesses anyway and sell it as the famous Spanish pride. And you ask them about the bull fight tradition and most of them haven´t even a clue about the history and development about it. Believe it or not, but I´ve seen them throwing out little dog puppies out of the windows of a driving car down the canyons while they were having lots of fun inside of the car.
And when the job on the animals is done they carry on with the foreigners. Just tough situation if there isn´t a foreigner or an animal around to torture because than they have to have a go at each others which of course is delivered by perfection and very noisy in order that the neighbors are able to share.
As they can´t deal at all with constructive criticism you better leave it. It´s a waste of time and saves you endless and senseless arguing with brainless idiots. We better kidnap all the animals and take them somewhere safe. It´s definitely quicker.
One isn´t surprised that the inquisition was invented here in Granada. But please, can someone tell them that it is over now.
Linda, we are 45 million Spanish. I don´t like bullfighting, I do not like cruelty to animals and what I do not make are stupid generalizations like yours, because your rule of three …. what we can think, the spanish, of the British? : stupid, gross, drunken, racist, xenophobic, the worst football fans in the world, worst tourists in the world, a country that bombarding to countries for to keep their petroleum, a country of pirates who steal land from other nations, the country with more violence in Europe, a country where a group of dogs chasing a fox to dismember … oh and above all, a country of hypocrites, where have all the worst in the world but only criticize others? follow, Linda? is that if I do not end up in life.
Yes Linda, you returned to England and not come back, never, but please go from here with your “civic” citizens who are are dirtying my streets with their droppings and vomiting.