Animal rights activists in Spain grabbed 75 red buckets filled with fake blood and protested in Pamplona’s main square on Tuesday, a day before the city’s San Fermin festival or the Running of the Bulls, which attracts 1 million visitors from around the world every year.
The protest, co-organized by PETA and the Spanish animal rights group AnimaNaturalis, aims to raise awareness about the “cruelty and torture” involved in the annual festivities, AnimaNaturalis director Aida Gascón told Spanish news agency Europa Press. Fifty-four bulls typically die during the festival.
According to PETA, activists from Australia, Sweden, Russia and the UK joined Spaniards in the graphic protest against bullfighting -- a longtime and controversial tradition in Spain.
PETA explains that the fake blood was chosen to “mimic the drunken revellers” who “douse themselves with sangria at the Running of the Bulls, oblivious to the fact that every single one of the terrified animals they chase through the cobbled streets will be dead a few days later after being stabbed to death in a bullfight.”
Scroll down for more photos from the protest:
A version of this post first appeared on HuffPost Spain.