The study was conducted among 176 sporting bull rearers in Madurai, Trichy, Dindigul and Pudukottai districts who were actively involved in sporting bull rearing. Majority of the sporting bull rearers were in the age group of less than 35 years ( per cent) followed by 36 to 45 years ( per cent) and more than 45 years ( per cent) and they were illiterate ( per cent) and mostly belonging to Hindu religion ( per cent). Among bull rearers, percent of the respondents belonged to backward community followed by most backward ( percent) community and scheduled castes ( percent). The data depicted that more than half of the respondents ( per cent) were rearing the sporting bulls as an ancestral legacy for several decades. The bull rearers selected the bull calves based on alertness ( per cent), body conformation ( per cent) and whirls ( per cent). Most of the bull rearers ( per cent) believed that training was essential and their choices were swimming ( per cent), vaadi ( per cent) and hooking the soil by horns ( per cent) for sporting bulls. The findings of this study indicated that it is an age-old traditional sporting event; even though there was no income from these sporting bulls they reared because of their ancestral practice. | Demographic and social status of sporting bull rearers and rearing of Jallikattu bulls
