Please donate now to help end the cruelty that donkeys suffer every year at the Peropalo festival.

Every year in the small town of Villanueva de la Vera in the Extremadura province in Spain, a donkey suffers in the name of culture. The animal is terrified - it falls over, it collapses and suffers an enormous amount of stress. 

The reason for this suffering is a festival called Peropalo. Every year thousands of people descend on the town to mark the historical hanging of a rapist. A main part of the festival includes a drunk man riding a small donkey that is then dragged through the tiny cobbled streets surrounded by loud and baying crowds.  This environment is no place for a donkey. You can help put an end to this cruelty.

Your support will allow The Donkey Sanctuary to maintain a presence at festivals such as this one and continue to apply pressure at a regional level to bring about an end to this abuse.

With your help we can spread awareness not only of this donkey suffering in Spain but of donkeys suffering all over the world. This will take time and we cannot end this cruelty overnight.  But with your help we can give the donkeys who are part of this festival a voice.

Please support us in this first phase of our campaign to implore the regional government to put an end to the use of a donkey in their celebrations and help them see that this is cruelty not culture.

If funds received from this campaign exceed our fundraising target we will use them to help donkeys in need in the UK and around the world.