February 15, 2001. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

MAD COWS THREATEN BULLFIGHTING TRADITIONS

LONDON, February 15, Graphic News: TOUGH European Union measures against mad cow disease are striking fear into the hearts of breeders of prize-fighting bulls and threatening to bring an end to one of SpainÕs oldest traditions: small town festivals featuring bullfights.
ÒThe regulations could be catastrophic,Ó said Jaime Sebastian de Erice, spokesman for the Union of Fighting Bull Breeders. ÒUp to 80 percent of the bullfighting festivals in Spain will not be able take on the costs of the new measures.Ó
New EU rules state that cattle over 30 months old must be tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- popularly known as mad cow disease -- before they are slaughtered for human consumption. Otherwise they must be destroyed, usually by incineration.
Now severed ears, usually awarded to proud toreros as prizes or thrown to the crowd, are being displayed before being handed to an official overseeing the event.
These measures collide head-on with the centuries-old corrida tradition of selling carcasses of fighting bulls killed in the ring directly to butchers. Steaks, stew, tails, ears and testicles from the slain animals are popular fare in restaurants and meat markets after each fight, providing secondary income for breeders.
According to Sebastian de Erice, bullfights generate $4.5 billion a year. Around 14,000 of the festivals are small-town affairs run on a shoestring.
Maximino Perez, organizer of this monthÕs four-day Valdemorillo town festival outside Madrid, said the mad cow scare has been an Òeconomic disaster.Ó
ÒIt costs 6 million pesetas ($34,000) -- some 20 percent of the festival budget -- just abiding by the mad cow regulations,Ó he said.
Perez said he lost about $340 for each of the 52 bulls he used at Valdemorillo and spent about as much incinerating each animal.
The Union of Fighting Bull Breeders is now seeking $8.5 million to compensate for the loss of income from selling the meat. It is also demanding government subsidies to finance the cost of incinerating the slain animals.
No cases of BSE -- a brain-wasting illness with a crossover, inevitably fatal human equivalent -- have been reported among Iberian fighting bulls, although 23 cases among Spanish cattle have surfaced since November.
Breeders say that SpainÕs fighting bulls traditionally graze in pastures, rather than eat now-banned feeds made from ground-up animal remains -- the practice blamed for the original outbreak of mad cow in Britain in the 1980s.
/ENDS
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, El Mundo