Signs that the popularity of bullfighting in Spain is on the decline

Barcelona comes out against bullfights

Spanish bullfighting slowly bleeding to death | Most people cannot imagine Spain without bullfights, but there are growing signs that the country's centuries-old fiesta nacional (national celebration) is on the decline.

Not only are young people losing interest in the glittering and bloody spectacle, but even some of the authorities are beginning to feel embarrassed about an "art" that foreign animal rights campaigners blast as a form of torture.

When a matador donning his "suit of lights" bravely confronts death in the form of a 500kg fighting bull, spectators witness "the last great art of the Western world", playwright Albert Boadilla wrote recently.

Bullfighting "has survived miraculously since antiquity against all political correctness", he added.

Artists such as the late United States author Ernest Hemingway and the painter Pablo Picasso were fans of bullfighting, without which Spain would lose something essential to its profound character, bullfighting enthusiasts feel.

Bullfighting is also a big industry, which employs about 200,000 people -- from bull breeders to bullfighters' assistants -- and turns over about €1.5-billion a year.

About 12,000 bulls are killed in 2 000 annual corridas in the country where top matadors are celebrities comparable to movie stars.

The fierce Iberian fighting bulls -- a race that would disappear without bullfights -- are raised on spacious ecological pastures that industrial farm animals can't even dream of, bullfighting fans point out.

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The only Spanish region to have reduced bullfights so far is north-eastern Catalonia, where the capital, Barcelona, and about 20 other municipalities have declared themselves "anti-bullfight". Barcelona's last bullring is so unprofitable that the company managing it intends to give up the business next year.

Catalonia's dislike of bullfights, however, is also attributed to separatist strivings in the region, which seeks to distance itself from things seen as typically Spanish.

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