CAS is celebrating its birthday and exists 30 years!

On Sunday 11 June, CAS will be celebrating its 30th anniversary! And what a lot has happened in these past 30 years. We have achieved many successes and have seen how the bullfighting sector lost more and more support from society and politicians. Meanwhile, the majority of the population in all bullfighting countries is against bullfighting.

Ruth, one of our rescued cows for adoption | Picture: Santuario Vegan

In 1993, CAS was founded after animal protection groups in Spain asked for it; at that time, many Dutch tourists went to bullfights and the animal protection groups wanted this to end. At the time, Dutch travel organizations still offered standard excursions to bullfighting in their travel packages. After CAS was founded, informing travel organizations became one of its main goals and this was achieved with great success Travel organizations massively removed bullfights from their travel packages. Informing tourists was also an important activity.

Information to tourists about bullfighting at Schiphol airport in the summer of 1996 © CAS

After this, CAS’s focus shifted to political lobbying and the International Network Against Bullfighting. We are co-founder and also coordinator of this network consisting of more than 100 organizations. The Network is very important in our fight against bullfighting. We have a joint strategy and campaign together. In this way we can make a fist against the bullfighting lobby. Besides bullfighting and bull festivals, we have further extended our focus to traditional hunting with dogs in Spain.

International summit against bullfighting in Paris in November 2019 © CAS

Successes

With our sister organizations, we have achieved many successes in these 30 years. Below are the most important successes:

– Since 2012, bullfights are no longer held in the Spanish state of Catalonia.
– Five Mexican states decided to ban bullfighting.
– The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child asked Colombia, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Portugal, Peru and Spain to keep children away from the violence of bullfighting.
– Ecuador banned minors’ access to bullfighting.
– The cruel annual Toro de la Vega event in Tordesillas was stopped thanks to years of intense fighting.
– Mexico’s Constitutional Court declared that bullfighting is not cultural heritage.
– According to opinion polls and statistics, the number of people opposed to bullfighting increases every year in all bullfighting countries.
– Fewer and fewer companies and almost no tour companies sponsor and promote bullfighting.
– The number of bullfights decreases every year.

We could only achieve these successes thanks to the continued support of our donors and supporters Many thanks for this! After 30 years of CAS, we can say that the bullfighting sector has suffered huge blows. The number of bullfights has dropped dramatically since CAS was founded. And we will continue, until no more bull dies a cruel death in the bullring or at a bull festival.

Do you want to give us a birthday present? You can become a donor, you can also make a donation to CAS.