In Yucatán, over 200 bull ranches have been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a year and a half of inactivity, personnel has been dismissed, bulls are slaughtered and those that remain are underweight, warned members of the guild.
A group of protesters gathered Monday in front of the Government Palace to ask Yucatán Gov. Mauricio Vila to allow bullfighting festivities to resume.
Around 100 people from the guild participated in the protest and expressed their resentment for the lack of activity and income.
The bullfighting guild includes ranchers, cattle ranch workers, food distributors, caporales, transporters, bullring personnel, mass workers, bullfighters, novilleros, cuadrillas, veterinarians, and more.
Víctor Fuentes Espinosa, spokesman, and representative of the bullfighting recalled that before March 2020 there were up to 25 monthly bullfights all around Yucatán.
According to Víctor, since then they have had to slaughter a lot of fighting cattle and the corrals are full of malnourished specimens that have neither the weight nor the complexion to be presented in the bullfighting rings.
Fuentes recalled that in Yucatán there is a great attachment to the “fiesta brava” — nickname of the bullfighting festivities. In the Plaza de Toros in downtown Mérida, there have been registered up to 5,000 bullfighting fans.
Mérida’s bullfighting ring was built in 1929 and is a replica of a famous arena in Granada, Spain.
