This story is from February 14, 2015

Cattle shelter in city buys jallikattu bulls from Madurai

Santhosh Kumar, a farmer from Marudham village near Natham, was worried that he’d have to sell his five precious pulikulam bulls to the slaughterhouse as he can no longer afford to look after them.
Cattle shelter in city buys jallikattu bulls from Madurai
COIMBATORE: Santhosh Kumar, a farmer from Marudham village near Natham, was worried that he’d have to sell his five precious pulikulam bulls to the slaughterhouse as he can no longer afford to look after them. The bulls are of no use to him after jallikattu was banned but he was loath to sell them as meat. Hope came from a cattle shelter in Coimbatore that offered to buy a bull for 25,000 and care for it for the rest of its life.

“I was so relived that they would care for it that I sent another bull with them for free,” said Kumar, who used to spend 50,000 on their feed every month.
In a bid to ensure that bulls trained for jallikattu do not end up in slaughterhouses, Coimbatore Cattle Care Trust, which runs two ghoshalas in Vellingiri, have bought 200 of the bulls. “The bulls were being sold for slaughter, which is the cruelest thing that can happen to them,” said P Siva, managing trustee of Vellingiri ghoshala.
Contrary to other animal welfare activists, these animal lovers believe jallikattu or bull-taking must be preserved. “Jallikattu is an ancient sport to display courage and is part of our history,” he said. Many owners of pulikulam bulls, who had bough the animals for 2 lakh each, had begun selling them for as little as 20,000 to 40,000 after the sport was banned by the Supreme Court last year. “It costs at least 10,000 a month to maintain a jallikattu bull,” said P Rajasekaran, president of Jallikatti Peravai. “Around 15% of the owners have started selling their prized animals to slaughterhouses as they cannot afford to care for them,” he said. “While wealthy owners of prize-winning bulls can afford to care for the animals, smaller farmers are in financial problems,” he said.
Members of Coimbatore Cattle Care Trust went to the weekly markets or sandhais in Madurai and the surrounding villages to meet pulikulam bull owners wanting to sell. “We bought the animals for 15,000 to 20,000 each and promised to care for them well,” said Siva. “Some owners gave us the bulls free. Their only condition was to be able to visit their cattle and take them back if the ban was lifted.” The 200 bulls will be brought to the city in more than 40 trucks on Sunday morning. Fifteen bull trainers who are now out of work have volunteered to take care of the bulls. “They just want food and accommodation and we are constructing residential quarters for them,” said Nizammudin, president of the trust. The trust runs two ghoshalas that house 250 cattle each.
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