Madrid's annual 'Transhumance' festival of sheep and goats draws huge crowds

Madrid's streets were baa-dly jammed Sunday, not by protesters or soccer fans but by a flock of sheep and goats being led through the Spanish capital in an annual festival that honors the area's rural heritage. The festival also spotlights the environmental benefits of traditional grazing, in which livestock are used to clear brush and other flammable undergrowth, reducing the spread of wildfires. Juan García Vicente, an environmentalist who has taken part in the festival for three decades, said the summer's extreme wildfire season in Spain — among the most destructive in its recorded history — reinforced the event's ecological message.