12.02.09

Peru has been confirmed as one of the most anti-bullfighting countries in the world where still bullfighting is practiced,

through a recent opinion poll commissioned by CAS International in partnership with the Peruvian animal protection group UPA (Unidos por los Animales).

This poll, the first of its kind ever undertaken nationally in Peru, and which was run by the independent survey company Datum at the end of November 2008, asked 5394 Peruvians about their opinion on bullfighting. The results surprised even the anti-bullfighting movement, which although already knew Peru was not a very bullfighting country, it did not expect such a high level of opposition, making this the world's national poll on bullfighting in a bullfighting country showing the clearest rejection to this bloody activity to date.

The results show that 86% of the Peruvians over 18 years old are not interested in bullfighting, 68% are against it and 66% want a national law to ban it. As far as the opinion of Peruvians about whether their municipality should declare itself anti-bullfighting (as more than 60 have already done all over the world) 64% said they would like so.

This rejection to bullfighting not only can be see nationally, but also regionally in each and every of the 26 Peruvian departments, where always more people are against bullfighting than in favour of it.

In fact, in some departments the rejection to bullfighting is even stronger than the national results, with 96% of the people in Ica not interested in bullfighting, 81% of the people in Callao wanting a national ban, 77% of the people in Junin against bullfighting, 73% of the people in Huancavelica wanting their municipalities declare themselves anti-bullfighting, etc.

In the capital Lima (including Callao) the surveys undertaken by the Lima University since 2003 - which already showed an increased opposition that moved from 63.2% of people against bullfighting in 2003 to 83.1% in 2007 - has now not only been confirmed by our survey, but has also shown that this opposition to bullfighting already involves an immense majority wanting a national ban (81% Callao and 73% Lima capital).

Demo Lima November 23rd 2008 © CAS

Results also show that bullfighting is less popular in the urban areas than in the rural areas. Generally speaking: younger people are more opposed to bullfighting than older people, richer people show more interest in bullfighting than poorer people, and being pro-bullfighting is something more common in the mountains than anywhere else.

Detailed analysis of the results suggests that the percentage of Peruvians that are hard core 'aficionados' to bullfighting is only about 2%.

Demo Lima November 23rd 2008 © CAS

The demographics of the results suggest that with time it is likely that the opposition of bullfighting in Peru will grow even more, and therefore any  political decision to ban bullfighting will be popular in Peru and would not find too much opposition, except in a couple of mountain departments. In fact, there is already a Bill in the Peruvian Congress aiming to ban bullfighting (the campaign of which is being lead by Peru Antitaurino), and we expect that this poll will generate more support to it, or other similar Bills if this one does not progress.