This year’s fiesta season has produced an unusually high death toll, with downturn in number of bullfights and rise of social media offered as explanations

At least 10 people have been fatally gored during bull runs across Spain this summer, including four over the past weekend, in what is shaping up to be an especially deadly fiesta season across the country.

Spain’s best-known running of the bulls is held each year in Pamplona, but similar events are held throughout the summer across many municipalities as part of their annual fiestas. This year, as half-ton bulls race through the streets of cities and towns across the country, some startling images have emerged showing bulls attacking runners and spectators.



On Monday the village of Traspinedo, north of Madrid, was in mourning after a 33-year-old local councillor was gored to death at a bull run in the nearby town of Peñafiel. José Alberto Peñas López was closely following a bull as it dashed through the final stages of the run when suddenly the animal turned back and charged repeatedly at him.

The socialist politician was one of four people across Spain to be killed during bull runs in the past three days. In Lerín, a small village north of Pamplona, an 18-year-old died after being gored in the abdomen, while a 53-year-old spectator was gored six times in Blanca, near Murcia. A 32-year-old also died on Friday after being gored in the chest in the Valencian town of Museros.

“This number isn’t normal,” said Antonio Lorca, the bullfighting critic for El País.

All of the deaths occurred during bull runs, not the bullfights that Lorca specialises in covering. But speculating on the cause of the high number of deaths this year, Lorca pointed to the reduced number of bullfights in arenas.

Spain’s economic crisis has forced a sharp drop in the number of bullfights in the country, with about 300 fewer bullfights scheduled for this year as compared with the years before the crisis. Yet the number of ranchers who are raising fighting bulls has stayed the same.

“The only way out for these ranchers would be in the festivals in these municipalities,” Lorca said. “It suggests that many of the bulls that would have been destined for bullfights are instead running along the streets of this country.”



While there is no specific rule stipulating that certain bulls must be used for bull runs and others for bullfights, generally the biggest and fiercest animals are set aside to square off against matadors.

“These are bulls with more power, more capacity to charge,” said Lorca. Of the bulls being used for small-town bull runs, he said that “an encounter with one of these would likely do more harm than the bulls of previous years”.

Spain lacks any kind of formal regulation of bull runs or festivities involving bulls. What emerges instead is a mishmash of regulation that depends on organisers and the safety standards of each municipality.

It is an oversight that can easily turn deadly, particularly given that the number of bull runs organised in Spain is up 16% on last year, according to Anote, the country’s umbrella organisation for such events.

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At least four of this year’s bull-run fatalities have occurred in the Valencia region. When the organisation that oversees bull runs in the region was asked about the growing death toll after the death of a 32-year-old in Museros, it downplayed the incident.

“We deeply regret what happened in Museros but we have to keep in mind that this is an isolated case,” the organisation’s president, Vicente Nogueroles, told Levante-EMV. “Thousands of festivals are organised each year and the number of deaths are minor compared with, for example, the number of those who drown in swimming pools or die in traffic accidents. The bad thing is that they make a lot of noise.”

Others have pointed to social media to explain the rise in deaths at bull runs. Last week, a 32-year-old was gored in the neck as he was filming a bull run in the town of Villaseca de la Sagra, just south of Madrid.

“The young man was in the path of a bull run which he was filming with his mobile phone,” the town’s mayor, Jesus Hijosa, told Agence France-Presse. “A bull surprised him from behind and gored him in the neck.”

He said that the bull run was a tradition, but not one to be taken lightly. “Bulls are dangerous animals and when there are a lot of people, some don’t pay attention … you have to have your wits about you.”

A similar warning was issued in July by the town of Pedreguer, north of Alicante, after a 44-year-old French man was gored to death.

Witnesses told local media that the man had been engrossed in recording the festivities on his mobile and had been warned by volunteers not to get too close to the bulls. Shortly after his death, local authorities issued a statement reminding anyone taking part in the events to “do so responsibly and in accordance with safety standards”.