Manganeses de la Polvorosa - A goat which was to be hurled from a church belfry in a Spanish village's annual ritual never left the ground yesterday after participants were threatened with heavy fines.
After years of ignoring pleas from animal rights activists who consider the tradition inhumane, village officials put a stop to this year's "Jump of the Goat". About 2,000 people, many of them drunk on wine, gathered in the streets of Manganeses de la Polvorosa in northern Spain during the village's annual fiesta to see what would happen. There had been rumours revellers would use a stuffed goat, but participants said that would have been unmanly.
