Which is what I first said when I read this at Miguel’s:
And Catalonia bans bullfighting.
What… the… hell? Spaniards… giving up the dance? (shakes head) Next you’ll tell me that the Irish have closed the Guinness factory. One thing I want to point out from Miguel’s take, though.
Bulls back then were humongous animals with a bad attitude, specially the Miura line who probably killed more bullfighters than all other lines combined.
This is happening across the cattle world– bigger, more capable animals are being “bred down” to a level that their owners can handle. As a personal example, back when we kept cows on the family farm, we had a Beefmaster/Black Angus mix bull we called “Little Man.” People would see the bull, hear the name (or vice versa), and think it was a purposely ironic name. It wasn’t– compared to his sire, Little Man was tiny.
At a mere 1,600 pounds.* Standing on level ground, Little Man was eye level with the barbed wire on a fence. He could also wrap his tongue around the electric fence wire and absorb the shock with no visible reaction. His sire, however, broadsided a Chevy and put it into a pond– “no gasoline engines” means exactly that when you’re driving through a cattle pasture…
*Please note that it wasn’t my family that bred down Little Man. We got him from the owner of his sire, “Big Man.” (Also known as Brontosarco Rex… King Thunder-Flesh). 1,600 pounds is nothing to sniff at– his offspring tended to be 50% heavier than their mothers– but he was… small compared to his sire.
