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Preliminary study on the existence of ocular injuries after bullfighting or fire bull
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1  Animal Production and Public Health Department. Catholic University of Valencia.

Abstract:

The vision of the bull is the cornerstone of the celebration in which it is the protagonist, both when it is fought and when it is “embolado” in popular festivities. An alteration of the vision could suppose an excessive danger for the animal and for the one that faces him. The bullfight and the “toro embolado” are traditions that present controversy between certain groups of people, for that reason, the present study aims to determine if there are ocular injuries in the bulls after both activities.

For this work we use a total of 50 eyes, 40 from 20 fighting bull and 10 from 5 “toros embolados”. After the macroscopic and microscopic study carried out with fluorescein tests, ultrasounds, dissection and histological processing of all the samples, the results obtained revealed, in the case of the 40 fighting bulls eyes, that only two presented ulcers, two corneal opacities and one adhesions in the iris along with an anterior synechiae, and of the 10 eyes of “toros embolados”, only one bull presented an ulcer in one eye as well as corneal opacity in both eyes. In relation to histology and ultrasound, no alterations were observed.

From the results obtained, we can deduced that no macroscopic lesions occur in the cornea of ​​the bulls due to their activity, that the animals grappled, despite little alterations that may occur before the fight, do not compromise their functionality, and that none of the animals presents lesions in the internal structures of the eyes.

Keywords: fighting bull, eye, pathology.
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