Ahead of the start of this year's San Fermín festival in Pamplona, around sixty animal rights protesters from all over Spain and the rest of Europe staged a semi-naked protest in the town centre yesterday to highlight the pain and suffering caused to bulls during the fiesta.

Dressed in only black underpants and with matador's barbs protruding from their backs, the activists lay down on the final approach to Pamplona bullring towards the end of the route where eight bullruns will be held over the coming days.

AnimaNaturalis International director, Francisco Vázquez, urged the public "to reflect on just how many bulls will die during this festival alone. The name and pedigree of each one will be published in the press prior to them being pursued, cut down and tortured. These protesters hate bullfighting and want it to end, and they are ashamed to be part of a Europe that continues to counternance such medieval traditions."

The slogan for the campaign, which has been jointly organised by PETA and AnimaNaturalis, is 'Put yourself in the skin of the bull. Abolish bullfighting'.