bull pushed to his limits?

Spain may have just been given another reason to ban bullfighting.

The extraordinary video below shows a bull galloping across an empty arena before pausing and–perhaps after a flash of inspiration–turning around and leaping over the fence into a stunned audience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWAIjYs9Lws


The crowd dispersed quicker than you can say “ole” but an unlucky few managed to get caught up in the bull’s horns as it ran through the stands. Around 40 people are now thought to have been injured by the marauding animal at the bullfight in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona.

It took several minutes before members of the audience restrained the animal, which was later killed.

The bull’s tete-a-tete with an audience is rare, but bullfighting itself is not in Spain, where in most of the country it is still legal.

Last July however Catalonia became the first region in mainland Spain to ban the sport; it’ll be effective from January 2012. Around 180,000 locals had signed a petition saying bullfighting, known as corrida de toros, was barbaric and only really popular with tourists. The animal is bred to take part in a show, typically lasting 20 minutes, where it is stabbed several times before a matador finally thrusts a sword between its shoulder blades to kill it.

Supporters of bullfighting counter that the sport is a longstanding cultural tradition which Spain must protect. But is it worth protecting a sport like this for the sake of a nation’s heritage?

Want to see graceful animals in action? Mark Twain wrote about men who bet on frog jumping. Can we go back to those ways of entertaining (and gambling)?

Frogs love to jump. It would play great on a big screen or iPad. We know in this community dog fighting is dumb. Bull fighting is stupid, too, right? And today's incident just goes to show it again. This bull should be the last bull in the ring ever. He jumped because he was enraged.

The Associated Press story about this incident called him a beast. What? The bull was brought under control after several minutes and later killed. AP also reports a 10-year-old boy was in intensive care at a hospital in the regional capital of Pamplona after the bull reportedly fell on him. Another man was gored in the back. Thirty-eight others suffered minor injuries.

Frog jumping for all.

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