(by Daniel Woolls latimes.com 5-13-01)
At the Miura ranch, a revered patch of the bullfighting world, bulls roam idyllic fields dotted with oak trees and wild asparagus as death awaits them in the ring.
Nasty, smart and genetically unique, the animals bred at this compound near Seville also face a threat outside the arena--shifting bullfight tastes--and could conceivably die out, aficionados fear. So to protect Miuras and other rare bloodlines, Spain is building up a bull sperm and embryo bank.
"It's part of our national heritage. It's something that belongs to all of us," said Antonio Gomez Penado, the animal husbandry expert who extracted the samples under contract with the Agriculture Ministry.
The bank is housed at a veterinary lab in Colmenar Viejo, a town just outside Madrid. Its tanks of liquid nitrogen hold enough Miura semen to inseminate 1,000 cows. There also are sperm and embryos from three other rare bloodlines, and ranches representing four more types are considering signing up, the ministry says.
Of the bulls on deposit so far, Miuras are the stars. A Miura bull can sell for as much as $11,000, said Eduardo Miura, who runs the 2,500-acre ranch with his brother, Antonio. A bull from a run-of-the-mill ranch can cost less than half that.
At the Miura estate, the bulls mostly spend their days grazing peacefully or munching on vegetable-feed pellets set out by ranch hands.
They're famously fierce, with a tall, slender physique that has been their trademark for 159 years.
Years ago, a villager sneaked onto one of the fields to pick asparagus and had the bad luck to stumble on a bull lying in the vegetation, nursing wounds from a fight within the herd and thus more jumpy and ornery than usual.
"You could tell from a distance the man was dead. He had been gored over and over," said Manuel Garcia, the ranch foreman. "The bull practically tore his clothes off."
A Reputation for Ferocity
In the bullring, Miuras have killed seven matadors through the years, more than any other bloodline. The last to fall was famous torero Manolete, gored in the groin in 1947 in the Andalusian town of Linares.
Some bullfighting buffs fear that legendary fierceness may fall victim to the unforgiving law of supply and demand.
Like any other walk of life, Spain's $4.5-billion-a-year bullfighting industry is driven by fashion. At any given time, ranches can be in or out, depending on the size, looks and temperament of the bulls they produce and how those traits sit with matadors and promoters.
In recent decades, many of the most popular bulls have come from a Seville breeder, Juan Pedro Domecq, who coined a phrase to describe his brand of bull: the toro artista, or performing bull, one that collaborates with the matador to put on a good, long, graceful show.
Purists say Domecq bulls are predictable and relatively docile, making them more manageable for matadors. Some say a Domecq bull and a matador act less like enemies than dance partners.
"Top bullfighters like Juan Pedro Domecq's bulls because they are easier to fight, less fierce. They let you get set. They are not on top of you all the time, eating up the cape," said Bill Lyon, an American bullfighting expert who has lived in Spain since the early 1960s.
Last year 44% of the 1,500 bulls killed in top-grade fights were from Juan Pedro Domecq or Domecq-based bloodlines, according to 6 Toros 6, a bullfighting magazine.
Such domination is dangerous, said Antonio Borregon, president of the Council of Spanish Veterinary Assns. "The rest of the bloodlines fall behind and could even disappear. If they are not marketable and have no commercial outlet, they will die out."
So the sperm bank was established in 1998 to set aside Miura and other choice bull genes. So far, its stock has not been drawn on to make a bull.
The bank has taken on greater importance since mad cow disease appeared in Spain last November, with more than 30 cases confirmed nationwide--although none among fighting bulls.
If a ranch like Miura were to be hit by that brain-wasting ailment and all its animals destroyed as required by Spain's health rules, the sperm bank theoretically would be able to rebuild the herd.
Deadly Sport Unlikely to Fade
Despite the threats to some bloodlines, there doesn't seem to be any danger for bullfighting itself, even though statistics suggest the deadly minuet of a man or woman teasing a proud, majestic bull and stabbing it with a sword is not everyone's idea of art or sport.
A 1998 survey found 70% of Spaniards questioned said they knew little or nothing about bullfighting, and only 4% had been to more than five fights in the last year.
Nevertheless, 80% said they were confident bullfighting would never disappear from Spain.
Animal rights groups opposed to bullfighting are a non-factor, and no Spanish politician would dream of proposing a ban for a sport that is deeply entrenched in the country's culture even if die-hard fans are a minority.
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http://articles.latimes.com/2001/may/13/news/mn-62842
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