Bullfighting, bull-running, and bullfeathers

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

The Portuguese parliament in
June repealed a 1928 law providing up to
three years in prison as penalty for killing a
bull in a public performance, and instead set
a maximum fine for bull-killing of up to
about U.S. $2,000 ––which allows promoters
to hold Spanish-style bullfights if they anticipate
making enough money to pay a fine; and
since no minimum fine was set, a well-connected
promoter might pay nothing. Spanishstyle
bullfights have already been held for
some years in the town of Barrancos, near
the border with Spain. Under the old law,
only the bullfighters themselves could be
prosecuted, and they always managed to
escape threats of arrest. Rallied by the AntiBullfighting
Movement of Portugal, about
600 people marched in protest against the
loophole in the new law on July 28 in Lisbon.

Alan Round, 52, of Britain, told
Helen Johnstone of the London Times that he
was only trying to make his way to the toilet
at the recent Festival de Bous al Carrer running
of the bulls in Benissa, Spain, when a
bull hit him from behind, forcing him to
spend his 30th wedding anniversary in a hospital
recovering from amputation of a testicle.
Nine men were gored and 199 others
suffered minor injuries this year during
the annual running of the bulls at the mid-July
Festival de San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain.
After losing as much as $100,000
sponsoring two runnings-of-the-bulls promoted
at Mesquite, Nevada, by California
fundraising entrepreneur Phil Immordino,
the Mesquite Resort Association has withdrawn
from the event. Immordino is reportedly
seeking a new venue. The 1998 and
1999 runnings attracted about 700 runners
each at $50 apiece.
The so-called California Academy
of Tauromaquia, exposed as a farce in the
October 1998 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE
by former undercover enrollee Steve Hindi,
is to present so-called “bloodless bullfights”
September 8-10 as part of a “Mexican