Macroscopical lung lesions in bullfighting bovine

Abstract

The lung is the organ in charge of gas exchange and ensuring good availability of oxygen in situations of maximum exercise such as the bull fight. For this reason, it s interesting to know which are the main pulmonary affectations seen in post-mortem carcasses in order to be able to make improvements. In the present work, the frequency of lung lesions has been studied for five years analyzing 251 fighting cat-tle, evaluating the presence of macroscopic lesions (emphysema, hemorrhage, congestion and bron-chopneumonia) in the lungs of bovines of different ages and sexes. Methodology: it was carried out in the community of Madrid (July-September of the years 2013-2017). Results: n = 251 animals in the five years, 87/251 presented lesions and anatomopathological changes. Among the lesions and post-mortem changes observed: 22/87 correspond to pulmonary emphysema, 36/87 hemorrhage, 24/87 pulmonary congestion, 4/87 fibrinous bronchopneumonia and 1/87 suppurative bronchopneumonia. Steers (two-three year old males) presented a higher frequency of injuries (44.30 vs. 34.66%; P = 0.013). The probability of suffering lung injury in steers, compared to bulls, turned out to be statistically sig-nificant, proving to be a protective factor the fact of being a bull (OR = 0.389; 95% CI; 44.30 vs. 23.63%). The occurrence of emphysema was more frequent in cows than in other type of animal (53.33%; P = 0.023). Hemorrhage appeared less in cows than in other types of animals (13.33%; P = 0.023), and ten-dency to appear less in bullfight calves (P = 0.023). The present study has revealed that two out of every three bovine breed cattle do not present macroscopic lung lesions, as well as that the most frequent lesion is pulmonary hemorrhage, followed by congestion and emphysema without observing high per-centages of bronchopneumonia. Taking into account that 94.25% of the observed findings correspond to agonizing lesions (presumably not corresponding to previous pathology, including pulmonary emphysema, bleeding and congestion), only 5.75% of the lesions would denote previous pathology.These results could reflect the conditions of extensity and maximum standards of animal welfare corresponding to the historical tradition of breeding wild cattle in pastures.