Bullfighting | 99 Castilla León (Spain) every September, in honor of the Virgin of the Peña A bull is harassed with spears by the villagers and forced to cross a bridge where they start hurling lances at him The bull suffers from severe injuries caused by the lances, a terrible agony that can last up to some hours, ending when the eventual winner of the tournament throws the fatal blow The winner has the right to cut off the bull’s testicles and exhibit them at the end of the lance The intrinsic cruelty of the tournament and the fact that the government acknowledges it as an event of national tourist interest have placed it in the center of anti-bullfighting campaigns In past years, activists travel every September to ask for mercy for the bulls of Tordesillas, where they are confronted by the villagers Bull of Coria This event takes place in Coria, Cáceres (Spain) on the 23rd of June to honor Saint John and, together with the Bull of La Vega, represents those considered the most violent of the thousands of blood fiestas all over Spain The bull is released from the barnyard and the villagers run him to the bull ring Once in the arena, he is attacked by the public with darts from blowpipes Spectators try to hit him in the eyes and testicles for several hours until he is finally shot (Fundación Altarriba, http://www.altarriba.org/2/verguenza/caceres-coria-english.htm FAACE Web site, 2008; Bull of Coria, http://www.faace.co.uk/Coria htm) Bous embolat or “Fire Bulls” Bous embolats take place in the Comunidad Valenciana region of central and southeastern Spain (including the provinces of Alicante, Valencia, and Castellón) and in the Terres de l’Ebre region, though these events are forbidden in many other regions In this fiesta, several teams compete to see which is the fastest to place and light two balls of fire on the tips of the horns of a restrained bull Once the balls are lit, the bull is let loose and the public harass it The bull inevitably suffers, due to the fear of the fire and the burns caused, especially in the eyes At times, the bull has died from being burned alive Attitude Changes to Bullfighting In recent years there has been a remarkable change in Spanish attitudes toward bullfighting According to a 2006 Gallup poll, 72 percent of Spaniards have no interest in bullfighting (Investiga, 2006: “Interest in Bull Fights”) and only eight percent of Spaniards consider themselves supporters In 1989, a campaign to declare cities as opposed to bullfighting started in Catalonia, and so far 47 cities have joined, achieving a major success in 2004 when Barcelona took a crucial step by agreeing to become an anti-bullfight city In Catalonia, animal-protection law prohibits the construction of new bull rings and, in fact, at the time that this essay is being written, it is in the spotlight due to a campaign to officially ask the Catalan Parliament to debate the ban on bullfighting Additionally, the growing rejection of the mistreatment of animals has even reached the Spanish Parliament, where a group of MPs has created the Parliamentary Association for the Defense of Animals, lobbying against bullfighting and also supporting the ban on cat and dog fur, as well as the ban on seal-derived products within the EU More evidence that winds of change are blowing comes from the city of Paterna in the province of Valencia, where the