Pit bull attacks, not bullfighting bans, are the talk of South America - Animals 24-7 (2024)

Owner of Dogo Argentinos who killed 15-year-old girl to go to trial

SANTIAGO, Chile; RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil; BUENOS AIRES, Argentina––The biggest cities in the biggest nations of South America are buzzing about fighting bulls, but of the canine order, not the bovine kind.

One might imagine that the Colombian national ban on Spanish-style arena bullfighting introduced on May 28, 2024 might grip the attention of Chileans, Brazilians, and Argentinians, if either U.S. stereotypes of South America or bullfighting aficionados’ wishful thinking about the cultural importance of bullfights in Hispanic cultures held up.

But any serious debate about bullfighting in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina actually ended with national bullfighting bans adopted long ago. Uruguay banned bullfighting back in 1912. Ecuador banned Spanish-style arena bullfights in 2011, though Portuguese “bloodless” bullfights continue.

José Luis Nieto to go to trial

Pit bulls, though, are increasingly feared, with reason, in the nations of origin of the Fila Brasiliero, Dogo Argentino, and other mastiff and pit bull variants with which many and perhaps most South Americans would prefer not to be identified.

In Córdoba, Argentina, prosecutor Carlos Navi on June 1, 2024 recommended that José Luis Nieto, 55, be sent to trial for the death of 15-year-old Trinidad Ballesteros, mauled by two Dogo Argentinos running at large on July 9, 2023, while walking her own two small dogs near her home.

Dogo Argentinos, a mastiff variant mixed with pit bull, are also known as “Dogs of Córdoba.”

Bitten on her head, neck, and legs, Trinidad Ballesteros suffered two heart attacks before her death in the early morning hours of July 10, 2023.

Dogos also injured two neighbors & killed a poodle

The Dogo Argentinos also mauled a neighbor who tried to help Trinidad Ballesteros, injured another neighbor, then killed a toy poodle belonging to another neighbor and invaded the poodle’s home.

The homeowner, identified only as Maximiliano, defended his 10-month-old baby and a visiting young nephew by killing both Dogo Argentinos with a meat cleaver.

José Luis Nieto is charged with manslaughter for Trinidad Ballesteros’ death, and with culpable conduct leading to injury in the cases of the neighbors who tried to save Trinidad Ballesteros.

The charges could send Nieto to prison for eight to 25 years.

“They were prepared to kill”

Nieto “trained these animals for hunting and attack. They were prepared to kill,” Navi told the newspaper El Doce.

“They were trained to hunt big game,” Navi continued. “Nieto had not adopted the necessary precautions to keep them.”

Navi cited requirements for a “two-meter-high wall, fence, health certificates, warnings of the presence of these animals, and other security measures.”

Navi noted that Nieto had previously been sentenced to meet the cited safety requirements after the Dogo Argentinos had “already attacked other people and other animals.”

Then, in April 2023, the same dogs killed another neighbor’s pet, Navi said.

A similar incident occurred in the southeastern Argentinian city of Cale Oliva on December 30, 2022. A dog seized a 12-year-old by the neck, but the boy was rescued by a passer-by, after which the boy’s father stabbed the dog to death.

Vaccination drives eradicated canine rabies in four nations

Canine rabies, while still occurring in Chile and much of the rest of South America, has been not a concern in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Uroguay for nearly 40 years.

Beginning in 1985, rabies vaccination campaigns directed by Argentinian medical doctor Oscar Larghi reduced canine rabies cases from close to 5,000 cases per year in Buenos Aires, 1,200 per year in Sao Paulo, and 1,000 per year in Lima, to zero, Larghi reported to the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases in May 1998.

But that did not eradicate the threat of non-rabid dog attack.

Brazilian author Roseana Murray survived––barely

Roseana Murray, 73, of Saquarema, Brazil, author of more than 100 books for children, returned home on April 19, 2024, after losing her right arm and an ear, and enduring reconstructive surgery on her lips and left arm, in a random attack by three pit bulls who were running at large.

Murray reportedly spent a month in critical condition.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, married to Spanish journalist Juan Arias Martínez, 91, Murray reportedly has more than 13,600 Instagram followers.

The most recent Brazilian dog attack fatality known to ANIMALS 24-7, two-year-old Pyettro Alves da Silva, was fatally mauled on September 27, 2023 in the city of Teixeira de Freitas, by a pit bull his family had adopted just two days earlier.

The chained pit bull reportedly snapped his chain while lunging after the victim, as the victim tried to retrieve a lost ball from the garden.

Feral dogs are not “invasive,” says Chile

The Chilean Chamber of Deputies in early May 2024 rejected a bill which would have declared feral dogs an invasive species, marking them for extermination.

The bill was rejected in part because the delegates recognized that owned dogs may bite and maul even more people than the ubiquitous street dogs and dump dogs.

However, reported the newspaper La Cuarta on May 8, 2024, “The problem of dogs has generated debate, due to the consequences this situation brings.”

South American data comparable to U.S. & Canada

The combined human populations of all 12 South American nations, about 425 million, are comparable to the combined human populations of the U.S. and Canada, about 380 million.

The combined dog populations of all 12 South American nations are estimated by the international statistical service Statista at about 100 million, almost identical to the combined dog populations of the U.S. and Canada.

But while ANIMALS 24-7 has collected and logged fatal and disfiguring dog attacks occurring in the U.S. and Canada since 1982, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has produced periodic estimates of dog bites requiring hospital treatment since 1961, no comparable data exists for anywhere in South America, so far as ANIMALS 24-7 can determine.

Bite data

Some Chilean government agencies have begun building relevant data bases, however.

The Regional Health Secretariat of Antofa*gasta, one of the major cities in Chile, told La Cuarta that 3,387 residents suffered dog bites requiring treatment in 2023, an average of 9.2 per day.

Projected to the whole of South America, this would be about 3.3 million bites per year, well below the 4.5 million bites per year that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has projected for the past 25 years.

Fatalities are another story

But fatalities are another story. According another major Chilean newspaper, El Mercurio, data from the Legal Medical Service shows that 24 autopsies were performed on dog attack victims from 2018 through 2024.

“The largest number, nine, was recorded in the Valparaíso region, followed by the Metropolitan Region, with six. The majority of these cases have affected older adults,” El Mercurio said.

If dog attack fatalities occurred in the U.S. with comparable frequency relative to human population, the U.S. would have had around 100 fatalities per year; the known U.S. average over the same time frame was 61, at that five times higher than the toll from the 1980s.

Daniela Gamboa

Dog attacks attracting enduring attention in Chile killed Daniela Gamboa, 27, in October 2023, and a 34-year-old mother of two in Buin, south of Santiago, in April 2023.

“Tourist guide Daniela Gamboa was found dead from dog bites after last being seen cycling and talking to her mother on her phone, while a three-year-old boy had his ear badly bitten. And a Brazilian tourist is currently in hospital after being severely injured in an attack last week,” summarized Daily Mirror correspondent Tim Hanlon on January 14, 2024.

“The municipality of San Pedro de Atacama is seeking permission from the courts to cull dogs found without owners or anyone looking after them,” Hanlon wrote.

Current Chilean policy is to kill only free-roaming dogs exhibiting rabid symptoms.

San Pedro de Atacama claimed to have “around 4,500 dogs roaming freely without an owner in the city of 5,000 people,” Hanlon reported.

In reality, the volume of food waste and the huntable rodent population in a city of 5,000 people could not support even 10% as many feral dogs, but even 450 free-roaming feral dogs would nonetheless present a considerable risk to public health and safety.

The 34-year-old mother of two in Buin was attacked by four dogs on her way to bring her children home from school. A man who tried to rescue her also reportedly suffered severe injuries.

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