Agencies MEXICO CITY

Mexico City’s congress has voted to ban traditional bullfights and replace them with a new form of bloodless spectacle, marking the latest episode in a years-long legal battle to outlaw the practice in the capital. Animal rights activists celebrated the move on Tuesday – even if it wasn’t the total ban on bullfighting they had been pushing for.

The bullfighting industry rejected the new regulation and said they had not been consulted on it. At a press conference, Salvador Arias, a lawyer from Tauromaquia Mexicana, an organisation that defends bullfighting, said  the proposal for bloodless bullfights resembled one that was tried and failed in the Balearic Islands in Spain, where it won little interest from fans and was eventually thrown out by a Spanish court.

“Bulls will no longer be subjected to the brutal cruelty of being repeatedly stabbed and ultimately killed in the ring, which is something we welcome,” said Anton Aguilar, the executive director of Humane World for Animals Mexico, while noting that “a bull event without violence does not mean one without suffering”.

Mexico City’s bullfighting ring, Plaza México, which with 42,000 seats is the biggest in the world, will in theory still hold bullfights – only without violence. Whereas a traditional bullfight involves an array of lances, barbed spears and a slender sword for the killing blow, these new events will only allow the matadors to use the capes with which they draw the bulls to charge them.

The bull’s horns will also be “protected”, to prevent harm to the matador or other animals. The bloodless bullfights will be limited to 15 minutes – after which time the bulls will be sent back to their owners and ranches. It is now forbidden for them to die either inside or outside the ring.

The change stemmed from a citizens’ initiative which first proposed a total ban, only for the head of the Mexico City government, Clara Brugada, to modify it and introduce the concept of non-violent bullfights. Brugada suggested that the move would allow them to retain the economic activity around bullfighting. Proponents claim the industry supports tens of thousands of jobs.