After being cancelled due to COVID-19, bullfighting competitions are returning to 11 locations across the country this year. The name of the event has been changed to “bullfighting” in response to accusations of animal cruelty, but the controversy is still raging.
Reporter Doo-yeol Yoon reports.
[Reporter]
A fighting cow enters the arena.
Its owner challenges it to a fight, and its horned head comes crashing in.
The match continues for about 10 minutes, with horns hitting, hooking, and headbutting.
Exhausted, the bulls gasp for air.
At the end of the confrontation, one turns on its back and runs away, and the match is over.
At the same time, an animal rights protest is in full swing outside the stadium.
They dress up as cows and slash their tyres.
They say it’s animal cruelty to train them harshly, feed them complementary diets, and raise them to be fighting bulls so they can bash their horns into each other스포츠토토.
[Abolish the Qingdao bullfight. Abolish, abolish, abolish].
After a hiatus due to the coronavirus, bullfighting competitions will be held again this year in 11 locations across the country.
In particular, Cheongdo, Gyeongsangbuk-do, is the only one in the country that puts money on the bouts.
You can bet up to 100,000 won per match and 1.2 million won per day.
The Animal Protection Act prohibits hurting animals for gambling or entertainment purposes.
However, it makes an exception for “folk games,” so fighting dogs is illegal and bullfighting is legal.
[Cho Hyun-jung/Activist, Animal Rights Action Kara: The exception is made in the name of tradition, so it is not considered animal cruelty. There are many cases of animals being hit by horns and bleeding during the matches].
The organisers are conscious of this criticism.
They have changed the name from ‘bullfighting’ to ‘bullfighting’ and tightened the rules of the fight.
[Park Seung-kwon/General Manager, Korea Folk Bullfighting Association: We have all these rules, like not sharpening the horns, so we have to follow the rules. I’m telling you that it’s worth studying and preserving as an intangible cultural property].
With the resurgence of bullfighting, the controversy over whether it is animal cruelty or the continuation of folk games is also heating up again.