Blood sport
(Redirected from Bloodsport)
- For other uses, see Blood sport (disambiguation).
A bloodsport is a sport or entertainment which by design includes a risk that an animal or human may be killed or wounded.
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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Use of the term "blood sport"
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.
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.
Animal welfare
To most, and in particular to animal welfare activists, the term may be applied to a wide variety of activities, and is considered pejorative by most, activists or not. Some small minorities, such as hunters, for example, say that they abide by strict regulations and have the technology for much cleaner, more merciful kills. This is fiercely denied by many animal welfare activists. Today, under the pressure of the majority, strict regulations against blood sports apply. Certain rare ones remain however legal under strict control (e.g. bull fighting in Spain), but are facing an important decrease in the world, despite their supporters' vocal minority. In England, for instance, fox-hunting has become recently fully illegal and banned. This was widely supported by the vast majority of the population. This legislation is now in place and often enforced.
List of blood sports
- Badger-baiting
- Bear-baiting
- Betta-fighting
- Bull-baiting
- Bullfighting
- Cockfighting
- Cricket fighting
- Dog fighting
- Falconry
- Fox hunting
- Gladiatoral spectacles
- Hare coursing
- Hog dogging
- Human-baiting
- Insect fighting
- Rat baiting
- Rat catching
- Sport fishing
Campaigning organisations
- Irish Council Against Blood Sports
- League Against Cruel Sports (UK)
- Hunt Saboteurs Association (UK)
- Countryside Alliance (UK)
See also
- Animals in sport
- Baiting (animals)
- Illegal sports
- List of dog fighting breeds
- Category:Dog fighting breeds
| Bloodsports |
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| Baiting • Bullfighting • Cockfighting • Dog fighting • Falconry • Sport fishing • Fox hunting • Hare coursing • Hunting • Pigsticking |
Categories
Animal rights | Animal welfare | Blood sports | Pejoratives | Pejorative political terms