This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

We recently received a call to our Animal Activist Support Line from a person who shared her grief, anger, and disgust after watching a bullfighting performance at a school. The performance glorified sadistic bullfights to impressionable, young students, eroding their natural compassion for animals. We must take action now to stop the promotion of animal cruelty disguised as “tradition” or “culture” and instead encourage humane assemblies for students.

The bullfight segment of Liberty Intermediate School’s "Fiesta" event perpetuated the idea that badly injuring and publicly killing animals for amusement is acceptable. Had any students or teachers actually witnessed a live bullfight or watched footage of one, they would find it deeply traumatizing. The performance acted out on stage by students and endorsed by teachers glorified the barbaric killing of animals for fun. 

Prior to a fight, bulls are commonly exhausted from deprivation and torture. Sadistic practices they may endure include: penning in total darkness for two days without food or water; fed laxatives to sap strength and energy; filing down their horns; applying irritants to sensitive areas; and sticking cotton in their throat and nostrils. During the fight, bulls are stabbed several times before the grand finale when a matador cuts the bull’s spinal cord with a small knife for a dramatic finale. Sometimes the bull is still alive when the matador cuts off his tail, ears, and testicles as souvenirs. It is never a fair "fight."

Horses used in bullfights are also victims. They are blindfolded, and may have their ears plugged with cotton, their noses filled with scent-blocking chemicals or even have their vocal cords severed so they cannot scream.

These highly-staged forms of cruelty to animals are still sanctioned and even subsidized by governments in Spain, France, Portugal, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. This barbaric and bloody “entertainment” should be condemned and protested by parents and their children, not glorified in a public school.

What YOU Can Do:

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.