Help Stop Torture of Bulls at Festival in Mexico!

Every year on February 1 in Tlacotalpan—a city in the Mexican state of Veracruz—bulls are horrifically tortured during the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria. Reportedly, liquor is poured down the bulls' throats, and they are dragged across a river only to be set loose in the streets, where the terrified animals are chased around, lassoed, beaten with bats, and stabbed with various implements. Their ordeal allegedly continues for hours, as drunken residents hurl bricks and trash at the animals, kick and punch them, and even cut off their ears. Surviving bulls are then reportedly turned out to pasture, possibly left to suffer from their injuries.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has named Tlacotalpan a World Heritage Site, the prestigious title given to locations of cultural or physical significance. Despite this international recognition, the city's use of bulls at the festival continues, although the governor of Veracruz banned it in 2006.

Please contact city and state officials and ask that the ban be enforced, and urge UNESCO to revoke Tlacotalpan's World Heritage Site status until then. Please also inform Mexico's tourism officials that you will not travel to Tlacotalpan or Veracruz until this sadistic activity is banned permanently.

(From PETA, 2015)