The death of Victor Barrio, a Peruvian bullfighter gored in the ring, has sparked renewed pressure by animal rights activists for bullfighting to be banned completely. In many ways, this seems reasonable: this was the first torero death in a famously dangerous sport since 1985, whereas tens of thousands of bulls are killed in fights every year. At the same time however, proponents of bullfighting insist it is heavily intertwined with Hispanic culture and, as such, cannot be so easily set aside.

Man has a long history of crossing swords with beasts, stemming from our hunter-gatherer past. Glory and honour were wrought on those most successful at this most dangerous of sports: the amphitheatres of ancient Rome were home to some of the most thrilling contests between human and animal. Alongside the main, man-on-man fights, specialised gladiators would fight exotic creatures imported from all across the Empire, and beyond. Set in this bloodthirsty context, bullfighting – or corrida de toros in Spanish – seems to certainly fit into this tradition of man asserting his apparent superiority over the natural world’s most perilous occupants.

Bullfighting found its origins in the early Middle Ages as a companion sport to jousting. Reserved for the rich, a typical bullfight consisted of a single man on horseback facing a bull – in contrast to the modern practice of many fighters (some mounted, some on foot) against a single bull. Clear parallels exist therefore with another  aristocracy-dominated sport: fox hunting.

However, there is a significant difference between bullfighting and other ‘blood sports’. For all that proponents of fox hunting claim that it is a key part of rural culture, its impact on the wider populace is highly limited at most. The death of Victor Barrio, by contrast, was broadcast live on national television to a large audience: its popularity of such a programme certainly gives grounds to the notion that bullfighting is an important cultural practice.

In fact, it is arguably more a cultural practice than a blood sport. The traditional bullfight consists of three ritualised stages: the tercio de varas, where the matador uses a large magenta and gold cape to ‘test’ which side the bull favours, as well as other idiosyncratic quirks. A secondary fighter – a picador – then lances the bull in the shoulder from horseback. This leads to the tercio de banderillas, where further barbed sticks are driven into the bull’s shoulders. The tercio de muerte follows, which is the famous section using the red cape, and finally the bull is killed with an ideally clean stab through the heart.

These heavily structured elements are each announced with fanfares and, when we consider the overly elaborate, largely non-functional dress of the fighters, it seems clear that corrida de toros is not sport. It is rather a demonstration and a glorification of an art form which developed out of medieval noble pursuits. In this case then, is the cruelty to animals seen in bullfighting justified? We are used to sports taking a physical toll – often extreme –on participants both human and animal (take, for example, boxing, or the putting down of racehorses after serious injury). But in the name of ‘art’, this seems less acceptable.

If we look more closely at the treatment of the bulls throughout the bullfight, it becomes even more difficult to condone. Before the fight begins, bulls are typically weakened in order to minimise the danger to the fighters, and are also often irritated with chemicals which effect their senses, to heighten their levels of aggression. During the fight, the bulls are slowly bled to death using the barbed spears; and their eventual death is often not an immediate process, as fighters usually require two or three thrusts to finish the bull off.

Proponents of bullfighting would argue that fighting bulls fare better than factory-bred cattle. They live a longer lifespan in significantly better living conditions. After their death, they too enter the food chain. However, this argument is misleading – even if there are worse instances of animal cruelty, it does not impact upon whether or not bullfighting is desirable. These mitigating factors are simply not enough to justify the harm caused for the sake of art.

Bullfighting’s impact on Hispanic regions of the world in its long history certainly demands appreciation, in much the same way as we can appreciate the impacts of Roman gladiatorial fighting upon Italian culture – its pageantry, its stories, its magnificent amphitheatres. However, much like the gladiators of ancient Rome, it is time for the matadors of the bull ring to pass into history.