...and here I thought they were anticipated a F&MD cull...

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/119/world/Spain_goes_high_tech_to_preser:.shtml

Spain goes high-tech to preserve fighting bulls' DNA By Daniel Woolls, Associated Press, 4/29/2001 12:26 LORA DEL RIO, Spain (AP) 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.''

In the bullring, Miuras have killed seven matadors through the years, more than any other bloodline. The last to fall was famed 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 percent 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 Associations. ''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 now 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 would theoretically be able to rebuild the herd.

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 by the polling firm Demoscopia found 70 percent of Spaniards questioned said they knew little or nothing about bullfighting, and only 4 percent had been to more than five fights in the last year.

Nevertheless, 80 percent 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.

If a big-name matador retires, is injured or is killed, it's front-page news.

Important bullfighting festivals like the Feria de San Isidro held every May in Madrid are televised nationally.

In neighborhood bars and cafes the trumpet blasts and rhythmic cheers of ''ole'' from an afternoon bullfight provide background noise as common as that of a baseball game in an American watering hole.

Still, not all is rosy with bullfighting, as far as aficionados are concerned, and that's the problem for Miuras and other unfashionable bloodlines, said Joaquin Vidal, chief bullfighting critic for Spain's top-selling newspaper, El Pais.

He said fewer and fewer spectators understand or even care about the subtleties of what they are watching. They go to see star bullfighters, not quality bullfights, or they just want to go someplace to be entertained.

Vidal is among critics who say the bulls being fought these days lack the fierceness and agility of the animals of 20 or 30 years ago. ''True aficionados, ones who know bullfighting and study it, they go to bullrings less and less,'' he said.

The government's sperm bank attempts to preserve at least the raw material of bullfighting's golden days.

At stake are genes that go back to the late 18th century, when commercial breeding began in earnest in Spain, although bullfighting itself is centuries older. The bulls bred today in Spain all trace their lineage back to six ''castas fundacionales,'' or founding bloodlines, usually named for the breeders behind them.

Through the years breeders developed hundreds of lines that splintered off the original castes like limbs of a tree. But market forces have always been in play, with breeders ever sensitive to the preferences of fans and matadors.

Of the bulls in the rings today more than 90 percent stem from one caste, Vistahermosa. Another trunk, Jijona, died out in the 1930s for lack of demand. The other four have minimal representation in arenas. Among them are the Miuras, unique because they're the only remaining descendants of the Cabrera caste.

Despite the worries of others about his bulls' future, Eduardo Miura insists his sales have been steady for decades about 60 bulls a year. He says he has loyal customers that include one of Spain's top bullfighting festivals, the Feria de Sevilla, held every April.

''Think of a shopping center,'' he said. ''It always has one store that is a little bit more exclusive, that's always there. It caters to a certain market, to a certain kind of client. That's us.''

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001