Administrative Records and Animal Welfare Accountability in Bull-Related Events in Spain

Event-level documentary scrutiny of animal welfare requires matching each claim to the correct administrative record and linking related records. This study asks how far selected published Spanish records support such scrutiny for bull-related events. We developed a five-step audit: define the claim; identify the required object; determine whether the link applies; classify the evidence; and state the permissible conclusion. It was applied to 20 supplied claim-source units drawn from Ministry of Culture series recording 20,466 professional events in 2012–2025; two Castilla-La Mancha register extracts; and purposively selected documents. Worked examples illustrate four potential misreadings: settlement annotations read as incomplete registrations; a net gain of coded rows read as an equal gain of registration codes; grant provisions and call ceilings read as payments; and schedules or general rules read as evidence of occurrence or compliance. Applicable rules prescribe veterinary examinations and event records. For one bull run, selected sources supported reported occurrence and animal disposition; event-specific authorisation and veterinary links were not assessed. Because permit, veterinary and payment files were not collected, the incomplete chain in the assembled corpus follows from the collection design and does not establish that such records are absent. Candidate linkage fields are proposed for pilot testing.