Rescue and Protect Bullfighting Bulls and Cows

Six fighting bulls and cows saved from slaughter

Namigni Animal Sanctuary — The Toro Bravo Reserve · Report to our GlobalGiving supporters

Dear friends,

Because of you, six animals who were days away from the slaughterhouse are now safe for the rest of their lives.

This week, Namigni Animal Sanctuary and its Toro Bravo Reserve took in six Spanish fighting cattle who had been discarded as waste: one young bull, and four cows — one of whom, Belladonna, arrived with her three-month-old calf pressed to her side. They had no value left to the system that bred them. To us — and to you — they are irreplaceable.

These six are the latest chapter in work we have been carrying out quietly for years: giving lifelong sanctuary to the fighting bulls and cows that almost no one else will take in. It is a strange, in-between space. There is no shortage of noise about bullfighting, but very little capacity to actually rescue the animals a ban leaves behind — that rescue is expensive, logistical and unglamorous, and it is exactly what your support makes possible. With this rescue, our sanctuary now gives lifelong protection to twenty six fighting bulls and cows.

We do this without fighting anyone. Bullfighting is being phased out in Colombia by law (Law 2385 of 2024), and our work begins where that debate ends — with the animals themselves. We choose dialogue over confrontation, and building a real alternative over condemnation, with the animal as the only beneficiary. That constructive approach is the reason breeders, authorities and neighbors will work with us at all — and it is what turns a rescue from a protest into a home.

That mission is beginning to reach beyond Colombia. In August, we made a formal offer to take in a young fighting heifer who had escaped a festival in Spain and faced a sacrifice order — the first organization to put a concrete, funded rescue on the table for her. Whatever the outcome, it showed that the need, and the model, can travel.

Your gifts went straight into what these rescues require: safe transport, veterinary care, infrastructure, and the first year of feed and shelter for animals who will now live out their natural lives in our care. Every one of them is a life that would otherwise have ended in a slaughterhouse or an arena.

The work continues. More animals will need us as the transition unfolds, and we are building the capacity to be there for them. If you can, please keep standing with us — and share their story, because the more people who know these animals can be saved, the more of them we can save.

With deep gratitude,

Miguel Aparicio

Director, Namigni Animal Sanctuary — The Toro Bravo Reserve

Links:

• BUILDING REAL ALTERNATIVES FOR THE SAFETY OF BULLFIGHTING BULLS