Bullfighting is defended as cultural heritage in some communities and condemned as organized animal cruelty in others. The disagreement is not merely symbolic: in traditional fights, a bull may be weakened and wounded before being killed in front of spectators.
There is no worldwide ban, and the legal position differs sharply between countries and cities. Spain protects tauromachy as cultural heritage under a national law adopted in 2013. Colombia, by contrast, enacted its “No Más Olé” law in 2024 and is moving toward a definitive prohibition on bullfights and several related practices from July 2027.
Why supporters call it culture
Supporters describe bullfighting as a complex performance involving breeding traditions, music, costume, ritual and skills passed between generations. They also point to jobs linked to arenas, festivals, tourism and the rural estates where fighting bulls are raised.
Spain’s Law 18/2013 formally regulates tauromachy as cultural heritage and directs public authorities to protect and promote it. In parts of southern France, the penal code’s animal-cruelty provisions contain an exception for bullfights where an uninterrupted local tradition can be demonstrated.
Those protections show why the issue cannot be described as a simple global shift toward prohibition. Cultural status can give the practice political and legal resilience even as public attitudes change.
The animal-welfare objection
For the bull, however, the event is not an artistic performance. Traditional bullfighting intentionally places the animal in a stressful arena and uses injuries to alter its movement and strength before the final kill. Critics argue that entertainment and heritage cannot erase the fear, pain and physical damage experienced by the animal.
This argument does not require rejecting the history, music or identity of a community. Traditions can be documented, taught and celebrated while their harmful elements are changed. Societies have repeatedly revised customs when accepted standards of safety, equality or animal welfare evolved.
Reform, transition or complete prohibition?
Governments are testing different answers. Colombia’s law includes a transition period intended to help affected workers and communities move toward other economic and cultural activities before the prohibition takes full effect. Mexico City chose another route in March 2025, approving “violence-free” bullfights that prohibit injuring or killing the bull in the arena.
Reform can preserve pageantry and employment while removing the most direct harm, but opponents question whether any arena spectacle built around provoking and controlling an animal can truly be humane. Supporters of a complete ban argue that the clearest welfare standard is to stop using bulls in such performances altogether.
The central question is therefore not whether bullfighting has cultural history—it plainly does. The question is whether cultural importance is sufficient reason to continue conduct that would ordinarily be treated as unacceptable harm to an animal. Increasingly, legislators are deciding that tradition may deserve remembrance but not immunity from modern welfare standards.
Sources
- Spain: Law 18/2013 on tauromachy as cultural heritage
- Colombia Ministry of Cultures: implementation of the No Más Olé law
- Mexico City decree on bullfights involving violence
- French National Assembly: legal status of bullfighting
