America’s Running of the Bulls? It’s Total Bull

Here’s what a 40-year-old contestant of Pamplona, Spain’s annual bull run once said about his experience unsuccessfully attempting to outrun an angry 1,000-pound bull: “When you are gored, you feel as if you have been stabbed, like a truck has run over you. My back was covered in blood, but those are the risks of the bull run.”
Unfortunately for the bulls, the option of whether or not to gore such an intelligent fellow is really no option at all. For decades, the running of the bulls has unfolded in the streets of Pamplona. The encierro takes place every morning at 8 a.m. from July 7 to 14. With the launching of two rockets, a dozen steers and bulls charge behind thousands of runners for 825 meters into a bull ring. The run usually lasts between three and four minutes, and, in 2011, at least, resulted in the goring, trampling, and injury of 41 people.

Link URL*:  http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/07/11/americas-great-bull-run-animal-fighting