Colombia Banned Bullfighting. It Made No Plan for the Bulls.

By Miguel Aparicio, Founder, Namigni Animal Sanctuary

In short:  Colombia’s Ley 2385 of 2024 — the “No Más Olé” law — bans bullfighting nationwide, with full effect from July 2027. In September 2025 the Constitutional Court upheld it unanimously and extended it to corralejas, steer-tailing (coleo) and cockfighting. The law is firm and not in question. But it planned only for the people and the venues; it made no plan for the animals themselves. That gap has already pushed fighting bulls out of the country to be fought in Peru and Ecuador, to slaughter, or into inexperienced hands. With the deadline approaching, what happens to the animals is the one question still open — and the one this sanctuary exists to answer.

Bull in a field grazing in a Colombian ganadería in Caldas, Colombia. Photo by Sanmolinan published under Creative Commons License.

Colombia is about to become the first country of the bullfighting tradition to end the practice through a full, scheduled, legally binding transition. For animal protection, it is a landmark. For roughly four to five thousand fighting bulls still in the country, it is something more complicated — because the law that ends the spectacle never decided what becomes of them.

What the law actually says

Ley 2385 of 2024, popularly called “No Más Olé,” was signed by President Gustavo Petro in July 2024. It prohibits bullfighting and its associated practices — rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas and tientas — and set a three-year transition, so the full prohibition takes effect in July 2027. During the transition, these activities may continue only under strict animal-welfare conditions, only where they are an uninterrupted tradition, and with an explicit ban on using public money to fund them or build facilities.

On 4 September 2025, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Miguel Polo Rosero, the Constitutional Court upheld the law in full. It went further: it struck down the clause that had exempted corralejas, steer-tailing and cockfighting, extending the prohibition to those as well, and deferred the effect of that extension by three years so that reconversion could begin. The Court explicitly affirmed the parts of the law dealing with the labour reconversion of people and the cultural reconversion of venues.

This matters, and it should be said plainly: the ban is settled law, ratified unanimously by the country’s highest court, and it is not in question. Nothing in this article disputes it. What follows is about something the law left unresolved, not about the law itself.

What the law planned for — and what it didn’t

Read the transition the law designed, and a pattern is unmistakable. It is built around people and buildings. The State must design and execute, within three years, economic and labour reconversion programmes for those whose main livelihood depends on the prohibited activities, through an interinstitutional commission led by the Ministry of Labour alongside Culture, Agriculture and Commerce. Publicly owned bullrings are to be converted into cultural, recreational and artistic spaces.

Every one of those instruments concerns a person or a place. None of them decides the fate of a living animal. The law answers what happens to the matador’s trade and to the ring, but not the most elementary question the ban raises: what happens to the bulls, cows, calves and cockerels that exist today and will still be alive on the day the prohibition takes full effect. That is not a political criticism. It is a gap in the text, with material consequences.

The gap already has consequences

This is not a hypothetical worry; it has been happening throughout the transition. A large share of Colombia’s fighting-cattle population has left the country — exported to Peru and Ecuador, where the animals are fought or absorbed into those countries’ own herds. Others have gone to slaughter. Others have ended up with buyers who have no experience handling this specific and demanding breed, with predictable harm to the animals’ welfare. If the purpose of the law was to protect these animals, in their particular case the result so far has been the opposite — not because of its aim, but because it included no instrument to achieve it.

The scale is hard to state precisely, and that difficulty is itself part of the problem. Colombia’s livestock authority does not record fighting cattle separately from ordinary cattle, so there is no reliable official figure for the herd or its fate. Working from breeders’ own numbers and direct observation, the estimate is that a population once between thirty and forty thousand animals has fallen to somewhere between four and five thousand. In the twelve months that remain, those survivors face the same three exits — poorly documented export, slaughter, or neglect — unless something changes.

Three animals, three problems

A common mistake is to treat this as one issue. It is three, each with its own dynamics:

• The fighting bull is the best-documented population and the one whose handling is best understood. The traditional breeding world is comparatively organised and law-abiding, which makes it a workable partner — and makes an orderly solution most achievable here first.

• The corraleja bull is a different world: concentrated in Colombia’s Caribbean regions, with a more popular, less regulated culture around it, which points to harder enforcement and a higher risk of animals disappearing off the record.

• The fighting cock is the largest problem by number and the least addressed. There is no known plan, public or private, for the birds that will fall out of use in July 2027, and their housing needs make any improvised, large-scale response unworkable.

The clock, and the question still open

July 2027 is not a goal; it is a deadline, after which the response is no longer possible. Any useful measure has to be taken before it. And behind the immediate question of survival sits a harder one the law never touched: who cares for these animals, and with what resources, for the twenty years a bull can live? Protection that depends on charity or public subsidy forever is not a solution but a postponement. A durable answer has to make the care of the animals pay for itself — which is a question of models, not of goodwill.

The prohibition is firm and will not be reversed. The only thing genuinely open is what happens to the animals. That is the space this work occupies — not against the law, but on the part of it that was left unanswered.

At Namigni Animal Sanctuary we keep over twenty fighting bulls, cows and calves in permanent care, and we have developed, since 2023, what is as far as we know the first sanctuary in the world dedicated to protecting this breed. We did not create the gap. We are simply trying to show that it can be closed — and that a ban meant to protect these animals can actually end up protecting them.

Frequently asked questions

Is bullfighting banned in Colombia?

Yes. Ley 2385 of 2024 bans bullfighting nationwide, with full effect from July 2027 after a three-year transition. The Constitutional Court upheld it unanimously in September 2025 and extended it to corralejas, coleo and cockfighting.

When does the bullfighting ban take effect in Colombia?

July 2027. The law was signed in July 2024 with a three-year transition period, during which the activities may continue only under strict welfare conditions and without public funding.

What happens to the bulls after the ban?

The law made no plan for the animals. During the transition, many have been exported to Peru and Ecuador to be fought there, sent to slaughter, or left with inexperienced owners. The fate of the remaining animals is unresolved.

How many fighting bulls are left in Colombia?

There is no official figure, because the livestock authority does not record fighting cattle separately. Estimates based on breeders’ data and direct observation suggest a fall from 30,000–40,000 to roughly 4,000–5,000 animals.

Does the ban also cover corralejas and cockfighting?

Yes. In 2025 the Constitutional Court struck down the exemption that had excluded corralejas, steer-tailing (coleo) and cockfighting, extending the prohibition to them with a deferred, three-year effect.

Sources

Ley 2385 de 2024 (“No Más Olé”), Congreso de Colombia. · Constitutional Court of Colombia, unanimous ruling of 4 September 2025 (reporting justice Miguel Polo Rosero). · Population figures are estimates drawn from cattle-breeders’ data and direct observation; Colombia’s ICA does not disaggregate fighting cattle from ordinary cattle.