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'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. Hunting Social Analysis, American Sports Data.
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.

Contents

Use of the term "blood sport"

Current issues

Hunting

Bull fighting and cock fighting

YouTube Blood sport

List of blood sports

Campaigning organizations

See also

External links

Notes

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. 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: bull-baiting, 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.

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.^[1][2][3]

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^[4]. Its usage to describe modern hunting is a matter of dispute, particularly where modern hunters say that they are guided by the ethics of fair chase and that they do not impose needless animal suffering.

Bull fighting and cock fighting

Today, under lobbying pressure, stronger limitations on blood sports have been enacted in much of the world. Certain blood sports remain legal under varying degrees of control (e.g. bull fighting in Spain and cockfighting), but have declined in popularity in the non-Hispanic world.^[5][6] Proponents are widely cited to believe that these sports are traditional within the Hispanic culture. Cockfighting, Puerto Rico Herald, 2005. (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.)

YouTube Blood sport

While images of real animal blood sports may be on the decline in traditional mass media, the internet has provided a new forum. In particular, the video sharing site YouTube has been criticized for hosting thousands of videos of staged animal conflict shot specifically to be shown on YouTube's website, especially the feeding of one animal to others for the purposes of entertainment and spectacle. These videos have been flagged as inappropriate by many users, however YouTube has generally not taken the same policing actions to remove them that they have with videos containing copyright infringement or sexual content. ^{[7] [8]}

List of blood sports

★ Badger-baiting

★ Bear-baiting

★ Betta-fighting

★ Bull-baiting

★ Bullfighting

★ Cockfighting

★ Cock throwing

★ Cricket fighting

★ Dog fighting

★ Fox hunting

★ Fox tossing

★ Gladiatoral spectacles

★ Hare coursing

★ Hog dogging

★ Human-baiting

★ Insect fighting

★ Rat baiting

★ Rat catching

★ Spider fighting

Campaigning organizations

★ League Against Cruel Sports (UK)

★ Hunt Saboteurs Association

★ Countryside Alliance (UK)

See also

★ Animals in sport

★ Baiting (animals)

★ Illegal sports

External links

★ Irish Council Against Blood Sports

Notes

1.
2. Evolution by Revolution
3. Social Evolution
4. Bloodsports
5. Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain, , Edward, Lewine, Houghton Mifflin Company, , ISBN: 061826325X
6. Blood Sport: a social history of Spanish bullfighting, , Timothy, Mitchell, University of Pennsylvania Press, , ISBN-10: 0812231295
7. Times online, [1] August 19, 2007, retrieved August 25, 2007.
8. Practical Fishkeeping, [2] May 17, 2007, retrieved August 25, 2007.