Spanish Region Bans Bullfighting
By RAPHAEL MINDER
Published: July 28, 2010


MADRID — Bullfighting, considered by many Spaniards to be an essential part of their culture, suffered its most significant setback to date on Wednesday when lawmakers in Catalonia voted to ban fights in their region.

The law was immediately hailed as a victory by animal welfare groups over what they consider to be a barbaric and outdated practice.

“This is a historic day for all those who have worked to promote animal rights in a modern society like ours,” said José Ramón Mallén, a representative from Fundación Equanimal, an animal rights organization. “This is not about politics and Catalan identity but about ethics and showing that it is simply wrong to enjoy watching an animal getting killed in public.”

Still, the bullfighting issue has been overshadowed by a political debate over Catalan identity, at a time when similar issues also top the agenda in European countries from Belgium to the Balkans.

The Catalan vote came amid intense political bickering following a contested ruling last month by Spain’s constitutional court on a Catalan autonomy charter that had already been approved by Catalonia’s 5.5 million voters and the Spanish Parliament. While endorsing most of the charter, the court also infuriated Catalan nationalists — triggering a huge protest march in Barcelona — by striking out some of its points, as well as a legal claim to nationhood.

The bullfighting vote came ahead of Catalan regional elections later this year, in which nationalist parties are hoping to make advances.

On Wednesday, Catalan legislators, led by representatives from Catalan nationalist parties, approved the ban, 68 to 55 , with nine abstentions.

Lawmakers from Spain’s largest center-right Popular Party led opposition to the ban, both on cultural and economic grounds.

The economic impact of the ban, however, is likely to be limited because bullfighting’s popularity has long been on the decline in Catalonia, a region that was home to some of the country’s first bullfighting societies and whose main city, Barcelona, once operated three bullrings. Nowadays, just one bullring is left in Barcelona, attracting as few as 400 season ticketholders compared to 19,000 for Madrid’s main ring.

But supporters of bullfighting argued that losing Catalonia would set a terrible precedent for regions that have less bullfighting tradition and history than Catalonia. The vote also came at a time when bullfighting is already suffering from Spain’s economic crisis and lower consumer spending.

As an activity that is reliant on state subsidies, it has also suffered heavily from forced cuts in public funding. The impact has been particularly felt in smaller towns, where local administrations have bullfighting, which used to be the centerpieces of annual festivities. The number of bull fighting fiestas has fallen by almost a third since 2007.

The ban is to come into force in January 2012 to allow time for the industry to reorganize itself and for Barcelona authorities to decide what to do with one of the world’s leading bullrings, La Monumental. The bullfighting sector is expected to claim about 300 million euros in compensation to offset losses resulting from the ban

What does it mean?


It means the continued wussification of Spain.

If this is the region of Catalan then who really gives a crap. The real region is where the people that speak Castilian live. Catalan breeds whussies like Pau Gasol!!!!!!

After heated debate, Catalonia bans bullfighting
Defenders of the sport see it as a hallowed tradition, but opponents deem bullfighting barbaric. Some see the move as an attempt to assert Catalan identity.


Spanish bullfighter Leandro Marco performs at the Cuatro Caminos bullring in Santander. (Reuters / July 27, 2010)




BARCELONA, Spain — The independence-minded region of Catalonia became the first on the Spanish mainland to outlaw bullfighting Wednesday after impassioned debate.

Lawmakers in Catalonia's regional assembly approved the ban after emotional speeches that mixed expressions of support for maintaining tradition with denunciations of bullfighting as institutionalized cruelty.

The vote culminated a public initiative to ditch bullfighting that began more than 1½ years ago and has drawn international media coverage. Backers of the ban erupted in cheers in the assembly chamber's gallery.

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But critics have assailed the campaign for a ban as a pretext for more nakedly political and nationalist ends. They suspect the true motive is a desire to poke a stick in the eye of the rest of Spain, an assertion of Catalan identity as different.

The assembly vote here in Barcelona, the regional capital, came during a mood of heightened anger among Catalonians clamoring for more autonomy, if not outright independence.

Earlier this month, Catalan nationalists put on one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in this sun-splashed part of northern Spain. The protest was fueled by outrage over a long-awaited ruling by Spain's constitutional court that upheld most of Catalonia's charter on greater self-rule but refused to recognize a legal basis for calling the region a "nation."

Conservatives say that getting rid of bullfighting further undermines Spanish unity, calling it a gratuitous attack on one of the country's most hallowed traditions.

Advocates of the ban reject suggestions that their views or actions are a byproduct of Catalan separatism. They see bullfighting not as a tradition steeped in romance but a barbaric practice steeped in blood.

When the anti-bullfighting organization Prou (Catalan for "Enough" launched its petition drive to put the issue before lawmakers, its goal was to clear the legal hurdle of 50,000 signatures; it wound up collecting 180,000.

Nonetheless, the issue was a sensitive one for Catalonian politicians, who are facing an election later this year.

Before Wednesday's vote, bullfighting fans and foes gathered outside the parliament building to press their case as lawmakers arrived to take their seats inside. One anti-bullfighting activist stripped himself naked, then poured a bucket of fake blood over himself to encourage legislators to "stop animal cruelty."

Que viva una Catalonia libre!!
Que viva Canarias libre!!

Cibby you are all over the place USA and the Dom Rep and Las Canarias you have a serious identity problem .....But you are just a mixed up Gringo wannabe Cocolo

I'm simply supporting certain indepedence moevements. Don't be jealous of me. Be proud to be from the icebox your from.

Catalonia Bans Bullfighting, but the Fight Isn't Over
By LISA ABEND / MADRID Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010


Animal-rights activists in Madrid celebrate the Catalan parliament's decision to ban bullfighting on July 28, 2010



It's been a long time coming, but on Wednesday, Catalonia took a historic step. With 68 votes in favor and 55 against, the Catalan parliament approved a measure that will make bullfighting illegal throughout the region.
The vote, which will make Catalonia the first region in mainland Spain to ban a tradition still referred to as the "national fiesta," was the result of a popular initiative, launched by an association called Prou! (Catalan for Enough!) and first admitted to parliament in November 2008. In addition to banning the centuries-old sport (or art, depending on your perspective), it provides for the indemnification of those businesses — the bullring impresarios and seamstresses who specialize in capes — whose financial well-being will suffer from the ban.
(See more on the culture of bullfighting in Spain.)
"There's a lot of satisfaction, a lot of euphoria here," says Prou! spokesman Eric Gallego, who was at the parliament for the vote. "Before, bulls were always an exception to Catalonia's animal-protection laws. At last they'll be protected by them."
(Comment on this story.)
Although two of the main political parties allowed their members to vote with their consciences rather than in a bloc, as they usually do, the decision broke down mostly along party lines. Both the center-right Popular Party (PP) and the Catalan Socialists largely opposed the measure, while the pro-autonomy parties Convergence I Unio, the Catalan Left and the Catalan Greens all supported it. That division has fed speculation that the ban was fueled by a nationalist agenda. The Barcelona newspaper El Periódico noted that the number of opposition votes had dropped since the last preliminary ballot on the ban, held in the parliament in December, while the nationalist component had grown, "especially after [Spain's] Constitutional Court voted against the Estatut" — a statute whose provision defining Catalonia as a nation was ruled unconstitutional by the court in June.
(See a brief history of the running of the bulls.)
One parliamentary deputy, Alberto Rivera of the anti-nationalist party Ciutadans, accused his fellow lawmakers of hypocritical behavior. "If you really care about animal rights," he said sarcastically, "none of you will be eating foie gras from now on." Instead, he argued, proponents of the ban were motivated by the desire to "eliminate something that bothers them in the quest to construct an official Catalan identity."
Certainly the ban coincides with the Catalan sense of being distinct from the rest of Spain. "We're closer to the rest of Europe, and have always been more open, more cosmopolitan," said Prou!'s Gallego, when asked by TIME to explain why the anti-bullfighting movement is more powerful in Catalonia than elsewhere in the country. But the vote is hardly the work of a few ideologues. A 2006 survey showed that 71% of Catalans were opposed to bullfighting, and attendance at the northern region's few remaining bullrings has fallen precipitously in the past decade. Prior to the ban, Catalonia repeatedly attempted to limit bullfighting, passing a 2003 animal-rights law, for example, that prohibits children under 14 from attending a corrida. And 180,000 citizens signed the Prou! petition that initiated the July 28 vote.
For aficionados, however, the ban still comes as a blow. Luis Corrales, founder of the Barcelona-based Platform for the Defense of the Fiesta, spent the hours prior to the vote lobbying members of parliament and believed until the end that the prohibition wouldn't pass out of a respect for tradition and a desire to "preserve the freedoms of all citizens." His association conducted a study that found that the ban would cost the region €400 million ($520 million) in indemnities. "Given that we're in a terrible recession, why should the government be paying out that money?" he asked reporters prior to the vote.
(See when Spain's bullfighters turned on one another.)
The Platform for the Defense of the Fiesta intends to appeal the prohibition to Spain's Constitutional Court. But beyond Catalonia, the big question is what impact the ban will have on the rest of Spain. "Clearly this could have a negative impact on bullfighting throughout the country, by inspiring other similar initiatives," says Israel Vicente, director of Tauropress, a Madrid-based communications firm that specializes in promoting bullfighting. "But it could also provoke stronger attempts from parties like the PP to protect it. Before, the bulls were never politicized. Now we've opened Pandora's box."
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Scientists Produce First Cloned Fighting Bull

Carlos Luján for the International Herald Tribune
Got, the first cloned fighting bull seen here on the Melgar de Yuso farm where he was born. Got was created using nuclear transfer, wherein DNA from the “father” bull was inserted into cow’s eggs that had been stripped of their nuclei. The process created embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows.

MELGAR DE YUSO, SPAIN — The team that produced the first cloned fighting bull in Spain calls its dark brown calf the only living representative of a ferocious lineage that goes back 300 years.

Carlos Lujan for the International Herald Tribune
Vicente Torrent Guinot, the director of the Fundación Valenicana de Investigación Veterinaria, a nonprofit group that led the cloning project.
Got, who was born from a placid black and white Frisian surrogate on May 18, already gambols across the farmyard and uses his budding horns to tussle with children. He lives in a hay manger in this tiny northern village near the Camino de Santiago, a celebrated route for Christian pilgrims.

The project began three years ago, when a team cultured 41 identical embryos from a small sample of skin from the neck of a highly valuable stud bull, Vasito, before he died last year of old age.

Of 21 cows inseminated, three became pregnant.

Two days after Got’s birth, another calf was stillborn after its blood became incompatible with that of its mother.

Researchers at the University of Murcia, in southern Spain, are investigating whether the onset of that condition was due to the cloning procedure. Those results are expected in October.

Researchers at the University of Newcastle are verifying that Got is truly a clone. Those results are expected in early August.

The birth of a third calf, Toruño, is expected in the third week of August.

Vicente Torrent Guinot, the director of the Fundación Valenciana de Investigación Veterinaria, a nonprofit group that led the project, broadly followed an approach to cloning pioneered by the creation of Dolly, a cloned sheep, in 1996, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. But he said he had honed elements of the process to make it more efficient.

Dolly was put down at the age of 6 after developing arthritis and a lung disease, fueling suspicions that cloned animals are prone to illnesses.

Dolly’s creators have maintained that the onset of those conditions was not connected to her cloning.

Animal protection groups still question the ethics of using risky procedures to produce animals that could be used for blood sports, much less food.

“The underlying motive is clearly profit, with no consideration for the pain and the deaths of many animals as a result of this Frankenstein technique,” said Sonja Van Tichelen, the director of Eurogroup for Animals, a federation of animal welfare organizations.

Mr. Torrent said his goal was to preserve the noblest qualities in fighting bulls.

The group spent €30,000, or about $40,000, on the project. Karl Storz, a German producer of medical equipment, donated an endoscope for the insemination process worth €15,000.

The Guardiola family owns Got and the 20 remaining embryos, which are being kept frozen. A family representative could not be reached for comment, but Mr. Torrent said he did not expect them to pass on any of their future earnings from selling bulls sired by Got to his organization.

Mr. Torrent also said he would not ask for any royalties from researchers who reproduced the procedure. Instead, Mr. Torrent said he was content to be contributing to preventing the permanent loss of species of “high genetic value.”