JACKSON — The man behind two new events celebrating Jackson’s Hispanic population has brought controversy with the third.
An online petition to cancel the Mississippi Bullfighting Exhibition scheduled Dec. 7 at the Kirk Fordice Equine Center had nearly 7,900 signatures by midday Saturday.
Bulls have Velcro pads across their shoulders and matadors’ use banderillas (bahnd-er-EE-yahs) tipped with Velcro rather than sharp points, according to Ranch Cardoso of El Segundo, Calif., which stages such events.
“We’re even a lot more gentle with these bulls than rodeos because in rodeos they rope them, and we don’t even rope these animals,” Jackson promoter Peter Castorena told The Clarion-Ledger.
Petition creator Kimberly Spiegel of Oxford isn’t persuaded by arguments that the bull will not be killed or hurt.
“It perpetuates a cultural practice that is inherently inhumane and exploitative which causes unnecessary stress, fear, and suffering for the bulls, just for human profit — and I find that morally reprehensible and unjustifiable,” she wrote in a statement posted with her petition.
John Goodwin, director of animal cruelty policy for the Humane Society of the United States, said bullfighting events aren’t widespread, and he doesn’t see them becoming popular across the U.S.
“With all the entertainment options in 2013, why do we have to glamorize an activity in its normal form that involves severe animal cruelty?” Goodwin asked.
Castorena, who is originally from Texas and is of Mexican ancestry, put on a Cinco de Mayo festival and a Hispanic rodeo earlier this year.
He said two legally imported bulls are being housed at an undisclosed location until Dec. 7, when they will face Award-winning professional matadors Cesar Castaneda and Domingo “El Mingo” Sanchez of Mexico. Intermission will feature a Mexican cowboy singing traditional Mexican songs.
“I’ve had Hispanics that were asking me if we were going to kill the bulls and I told them no, and they were relieved to know that,” Castorena said. “In the general population of Hispanics in Mississippi, they say they want to support this because it’s something they want to keep in their culture but (make it) humane,” he said.
He advised parents to consider the bulls’ danger to the matadors when deciding whether to bring young children.
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