The Fiuncho foal controversy: rescue or viral money-maker?

The crow trainer, the herniated foal and the thousands of euros from the drama

The story has all the ingredients of viral success: a sick animal, an owner who doesn't want it, a saviour with a band of crows and an ending in the form of a fundraiser. The protagonist is Otero, a Galician from Spain known for his videos with trained crows, who went to a horse fair and came across Fiuncho: an undernourished foal with a hernia, destined for the slaughterhouse. According to his own account, he took the animal home. The footage soon spread across social media.

A foal with a negative price tag

The episode has sparked an uncomfortable controversy. The sceptics' main argument is economic: "A healthy meat foal weighing around 300 kilos costs about 300 euros; with Fiuncho, they pay you to take him." In other words, the animal was worth so little that the seller would have paid to get rid of him. Even so, the rescue story has racked up hundreds of thousands of views and, according to circulating estimates, thousands of euros in donations.

Compassion, business or both

The criticism isn't only about the money. Those who don't buy the persona find it odd that someone who breeds animals for entertainment and eats ordinary meat should play the righteous hero with a foal. The comparison with Bertín Osborne's purebred horses, worth fortunes yet generating not a fraction of that empathy, hits a nerve. In the end, the question is simple: what would anyone have done upon finding a herniated foal at a fair? And the data is unsettling: Bertín Osborne's horses are worth fortunes, while people were paid to take Fiuncho away. Now his story is pulling in thousands of euros. The foal's fate, for now, remains unknown.