Toro embolado

A toro embolado (in Spanish), bou embolat (in Catalan), roughly meaning 'bull with balls', is a festive activity, typical of many towns in Spain (mainly in the Valencian community and Southern Catalonia), in which a bull that has burning balls of flammable material attached to its horns is set free in the streets at night, and participants dodge the bull when it comes close. It can be considered a variant of an encierro (correbous in Catalan). This activity is held in a number of Spanish towns during their local festivals. In the 21st century animal welfare activists have attempted to stop this practice as cruel.^[1]

The animal is usually tied to a post and then teams of people prevent it from moving while a wooden frame with two spikes with balls of flammable material is attached to its horns. These are then set alight and the rope is cut. Sometimes fireworks are attached too, which then go off shortly afterwards. There is usually a barricade separating the bull from the spectators.

A somewhat similar activity is the toro de fuego, in which the live bull is replaced by a bull-shaped metal frame (held by a runner) which is set alight.

Vejer de la Frontera has held the yearly El Toro Embolao on Easter Sunday since 1976, where two bulls are let loose in the city. In 2019 a 74-year-old man was gored to death.^[2]

See also

• Running of the bulls

References

IssuesConceptsPain in
nonhuman animalsOrganisationsPublicationsActivists
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Contemporary

Michael C. Appleby Cynthia Bathurst Matthew E. Bershadker Christa Blanke Moira Brown Jan Cameron Judy MacArthur Clark Kendra Coulter Peter Ronald Davies Petra Deimer Alanna Devine Robin Ganzert Celia Hammond Alison Hanlon Brian Hare Kathrin Glock Emily Patterson-Kane Philip Lymbery Damien Mander Christine Nicol Wayne Pacelle Sharon Pincott Ilka Reinhardt Jill Robinson Naomi Sagara Sepehr Salimi Adolfo Sansolini Rakesh Shukla Karen Stockin Patti Strand Sally Varma Tina M. Widowski

Historical

Gertrude Ansell Emily Appleton Madeleine Bemelmans Henry Bergh Mary Brancker Victoria Braithwaite Roger A. Caras Jim Cronin Brian Davies Maria Dickin Marjorie Doggett Muriel Dowding Alice Drakoules Sarah J. Eddy Aida McAnn Flemming Lucy Furman Julia Goddard Robert Gower Colesworthey Grant George Greenwood Peter Gurney Velma Bronn Johnston Catherine Victoria Hall Rachel Hirschfeld Sjoerd Hofstra Albert Knapp Titus Lander Carla Lane Etta Lemon Victoria Lidiard Terry Maple Richard Martin Shirley McGreal Harriet Nevins Catherine Louisa Pirkis Eliza Phillips Maude Gillette Phillips Samuel Jackson Pratt Wilfred Risdon Peter Roberts Jan Salter Catherine Smithies Thomas Bywater Smithies Herbert Snow Ellin Prince Speyer Christine Stevens Elisabeth Svendsen Mary Tealby Ralph Waldo Trine Sidney Trist Ethel Venton Jessey Wade Christopher Wathes Franz Weber Caroline Earle White Emily Williamson H. Fergie Woods Alice Morgan Wright Gretchen Wyler

Scholars
and writers

Contemporary

Arnold Arluke Jonathan Balcombe Michael Balls Geoffrey Barstow Marc Bekoff Donald Broom Marian Dawkins Bruce Fogle Jane Goodall Temple Grandin Celia Haddon Jane Hurst Erich Hoyt Barbara J. King Alistair Lawrence David Macdonald Jeremy Marchant Jeff McMahan Daniel Mills Sy Montgomery Virginia Morell Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell Clare Palmer Susan J. Pearson Dale Peterson Jessica Pierce Diana Reiss Carl Safina Matthew Scully Paul Shapiro Jennifer Skiff Peter Wohlleben

Historical

George T. Angell Patrick Bateson Beddow Bayly Ernest Bell Edward Berdoe Arthur Broome Jean Burden Gerald Carson Stephen Coleridge Christian Adam Dann J. Morewood Dowsett Audrey Eyton George Fleming Ralph Fletcher Ruth Harrison C. W. Hume E. Douglas Hume James Macaulay Basheer Ahmad Masri Francis Orpen Morris George Nicholson Siobhan O'Sullivan Charles Reinhardt Francis H. Rowley W. M. S. Russell Chris Sherwin Colin Spedding William O. Stillman Bell Taylor Ernst von Weber D. G. M. Wood-Gush Frans de Waal Hugh Wirth William Youatt

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