Blood sport

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For other uses, see Blood sport (disambiguation).
Bull fighting is an example of a modern blood sport.
Bull fighting is an example of a modern blood sport.

Bloodsport or blood sport is a term commonly used by social reformers to describe sport or entertainment which is believed to be cruel, involving needless animal or human suffering.[1]

The term can refer to chase sports such as coursing or beagling, combat sports such as cockfighting, or other activities. It also includes spectacles that involve pitting one animal against another in a fight. These usually involve blood being drawn, and sometimes result in the death of one or more animals.

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[edit] Use of the term "blood sport"

Medieval hunting in the Très Riches Heures
Medieval hunting in the Très Riches Heures

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest use of the term is in reference to mounted hunting, where the quarry would be actively chased as in fox hunting or hare coursing. Before firearms a hunter using arrows or a spear might also wound an animal, which would then be chased and perhaps killed at close range, as in medieval boar hunting. The term was popularised by author Henry S. Salt (1851–1939).

Later the term seems to have been applied to various kinds of baiting and forced combat: bear-baiting, cockfighting and then later developments such as dog fighting and rat-baiting. These were appreciably less like a modern human sport in that animals were not willing participants, but had to be specially bred, confined or forced to fight. It was after the development of such activities in the Victorian era that social reform activists actively opposed them on grounds of ethics, morality and animal welfare.

By further extension other activities may now be called "blood sports". Sometimes this is clearly figurative, as when politics is likened to a blood sport. Sometimes this is anachronistic, as when the term is applied retroactively to Roman gladiators. Sometimes it is rhetorical, as when professional boxing is compared to the fatal combats of Ancient Rome.

[edit] Current Issues

Questions about changes in usage of the term blood sport illustrate the complex linguistic and social issues arising in the course of social evolution.[2][3][4]

[edit] Hunting

Under the influence of animal welfare activists, the term blood sport has been extended (especially in a pejorative sense) to a variety of activities not covered by the original nineteenth century use of the term[5]. Its usage to describe modern hunting is a matter of dispute, particularly where modern day hunters say that they are guided by the ethics of fair chase and that they do not impose needless animal suffering.

[edit] Bull fighting and cock fighting

Today, under lobbying pressure, stronger limitations on blood sports apply. Certain unarguable blood sports remain legal under varying degrees of control (e.g. bull fighting in Spain and cockfighting), but are facing a decrease of support in the non-Hispanic world.[6][7] Proponents are widely cited to believe that these sports are traditional within the Hispanic culture.[8] (Note the term bull fighting is not used in the same sense as the term American bullfighting. The latter term describes the art of the Rodeo clown or Rodeo Bullfighter. Bulls used in American rodeo are highly prized animals and are not killed in the course of the event.)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hunting Social Analysis, American Sports Data.
  2. ^ William Croft. "Social Evolution and Language Change" (PDF). Posted 2006-02-06. University of Manchester. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
  3. ^ Jackson, T.A. (May 1905). Evolution by Revolution (HTML). The Socialist Standard. Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
  4. ^ Mann, Jim (September 2, 1999). Social Evolution (HTML). Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
  5. ^ Greenwood, George (1914). Bloodsports. Stag Hunting pp. 1–33, in Killing for Sport: Essays by Various Writers, edited by Henry S. Salt. George Bell and Sons, Ltd, London. Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
  6. ^ Lewine, Edward (July 2005). Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN: 061826325X. 
  7. ^ Mitchell, Timothy (July 1991). Blood Sport: a social history of Spanish bullfighting. University of Pennsylvania Press, 244. ISBN-10: 0812231295. 
  8. ^ Cockfighting, Puerto Rico Herald, 2005.

[edit] List of blood sports

[edit] Campaigning organisations

[edit] See also


Bloodsports
Baiting • Bullfighting • Cockfighting • Dog fighting • Falconry • Sport fishing • Fox hunting • Hare coursing • Hunting • Insect fighting • Pigsticking
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