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Animal-rights groups lock horns
As Montreal gears up for the Big O bullfight this Saturday, the fight between two animal welfare organizations--the 130-year-old Montreal SPCA and a feisty upstart, Global Action Network--makes person-bull combat look tame. SPCA director Pierre Barnoti says that thanks to Global Action, the bulls participating in the bullfight will not retire to a farm to live out their lives, but will be "slaughtered for steak" after the spectacle. Barnoti is furious that Global Action's hard-hitting campaign against the bullfight caused the owner of a hobby farm in the Eastern Townships to renege on her offer to take the first set of bulls, from Mexico. (The Mexican bulls were replaced by bulls from Massachusetts.) Global Action claimed this care would prove too costly--an estimated $420,000 over the bulls' lifetimes--and that immediate slaughter was inevitable. But Barnoti says there are already 160 head of cattle on the farm and that a few more bulls wouldn't make much of a difference. Global Action, for its part, has repeatedly called for Barnoti's resignation at its demos because of the latter's perceived "collusion" with the bullfight promoters--a collusion the SPCA has since renounced. Global Action's Andrew Plumbly feels his organization is responsible for what it sees as a change of heart by the SPCA: "We feel we got them back on track. But it's a shame we had to do it. We should probably work together in the future." He admits, though, that the bulls will be sent back to Massachusetts where they will "probably be recycled for future bullfights and rodeos." --Jacquie Charlton |