Thread: Louisiana may ban cockfighting ( - about darn time )

Louisiana may ban cockfighting
By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 9, 1:34 PM ET



BREAUX BRIDGE, La. - Spectators shake their fists, scream out wagers and cheer on their roosters, the air swirling with cigarette smoke and chicken feathers.

Saturday night in Breaux Bridge means rooster fights at the Atchafalaya Game Club, one of dozens of cockfighting venues in Louisiana — soon to be the last state where the practice is legal. Fans from around the country pay $10 and settle into padded seats overlooking the pit, where two roosters peck and claw each other, often to the death. "I still go to the rooster fights on a regular basis because it's something I enjoy," said Billy Duplechein, 37, of St. Martinville. "And I'm trying to get my sons involved. It keeps our kids out of trouble."

But this Louisiana tradition — long decried by animal rights activists as cruel and barbaric — may be coming to an end.

Worried about the state's long-standing image as a corrupt backwater at a time when hurricane-stricken New Orleans desperately needs money from Capitol Hill, Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other politicians want cockfighting banned.

That is an unpopular idea at the Atchafalaya club, where enthusiasts consider it harmless fun. They say Louisiana has plenty of other problems to solve, including the stagnant recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "I just don't see how it's going to help the state to get rid of cockfighting," said Dale Barras, owner of the Atchafalaya club.

The Atchafalaya Game Club — home to the Christmas Derby, the Mardi Gras Cup and other cockfighting tournaments — is an unmarked warehouse in Breaux Bridge, a small Cajun town about 120 miles west of New Orleans.

Hundreds came to the fights on a recent Saturday night, and they were not unlike the typical high school football crowd: teenagers on dates, kids with their parents. They ate burgers and chili dogs and drank sodas and beer. "We don't make no one come to the fights," Barras said. "And we don't make the chickens fight," he added, echoing the cockfighters' oft-repeated argument that roosters battle instinctively.

The birds are fitted with sharp metal blades or curved spikes on their legs, and tear into each other. Blood soaks the animals' feathers and their handlers' clothing. A match can end in minutes or an hour, when one bird is dead or refuses to fight.

Men tidy up the pit between fights, like groundskeepers on a baseball diamond. One dampens the dirt with a watering can, another rakes up feathers. Gamblers settle their bets, and another fight begins. By the end of the night, a trash can in a back room is full of dead roosters — the losers. "The bottom line is, we have standards in society on how animals should be treated, and this activity violates those standards," said Wayne Pacelle, head of the Humane Society of the United States. "It's just not morally sensible to stage fights between animals for the purpose of gambling and entertainment."

That argument succeeded in Oklahoma, where voters approved a ban in 2002. A cockfighting ban takes effect in June in New Mexico, the only other state where the blood sport is legal. Gov. Bill Richardson signed the ban earlier this year, with some residents speculating that the Democratic candidate for president turned against the sport for fear of looking as if he comes from a backward state.

In Louisiana, pro-cockfighting politicians have blocked the animal rights movement for years. Some lawmakers say it should be a local matter: Towns and parishes can outlaw cockfighting if they choose.

State Sen. Donald Cravins Jr. said he will oppose a ban. "In my district, cockfighting has been a part of life forever," said Cravins, a Democrat whose largely Cajun area has several pits.

While cockfighting itself is legal in Louisiana, running a cockfighting operation that makes money off gambling is not. And in a measure of how political opinion has turned against the sport, state police have begun raiding cockfighting pits.

A husband and wife were arrested last month. That same night elsewhere in Louisiana, a Texas man was arrested on similar charges.

The governor and House speaker once tacitly approved of cockfighting but have come out against it more recently.

Because of the hurricanes, Louisiana relies on money from Washington to rebuild New Orleans and other areas. State leaders say they believe Congress will not want to send billions to a state where bloody animal fights are legal. "It's not a positive perception about out state," House Speaker Joe Salter said.

On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers are trying to toughen the penalties for transporting fighting cocks across state lines.

Barras and others said the state should keep cockfighting legal but make money off it by licensing the owners of fighting roosters, or by taking a cut of the winnings in tournaments like the Christmas Derby. "This idea is like our life jacket, to keep from being drowned," Barras said. "We're trying to find anything to keep us afloat."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070409/...53_dIq24BH2ocA

That's soooo disgusting. What kind of people consider this a fun way to spend a Saturday night?
I think Washington should refuse to give another dime in aid unless they ban this repulsive, and most definitely "backwoods" form of entertainment.

http://forums.bigbigsavings.com/show....php3?t=397374

Cockfighting

They banned it here a few years back, but it didn't stop anyone from doing it. Our crime rate keep rising and cockfighting is not exactly a top priority.

700-plus roosters rescued from illegal breeding operation in N.O. East
by claire galofaro ~ August 14, 2013



A woman called the Louisiana SPCA this weekend, declined to give her name and reported some 50 cockfighting roosters in a neighbor’s back lawn. But when investigators arrived at the home Wednesday morning, they found much more than they bargained for.

For hours, all day, they rescued more than 700 birds in what the organization describes at the most sprawling and sophisticated illegal breeding operation they’ve encountered in more than a century. They discovered a warehouse full of pens used to cage the birds next to the home in the 14000 block of Chef Menteur Highway. In the home’s backyard, they found another 150 or so makeshift cages, fashioned from 55-gallon drums, filled with roosters. Hundreds more ran free, hiding from rescuers in the surrounding mud and banana trees.

But the biggest, most beautiful birds, worth thousands on the black market, were kept in spacious corrals in a climate-controlled shed, with heaters and egg incubators, mating charts and an automated watering system.

Each rooster was meticulously bred for the ancient blood sport, which pits roosters with knives strapped to their legs against each other in a fight to the death.

The homeowner, 47-year-old Trinh Tran, was booked Wednesday afternoon on cockfighting and animal cruelty charges.

He told investigators that he fought the birds at competitions in Alabama and Mississippi, SPCA Chief Executive Officer Ana Zorrilla said.

Cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states.

Investigators also found shipping receipts that indicated Tran mailed the live roosters across state lines, mostly to California and Florida.

Big roosters, from a bloodline of winning birds, can sell for some $10,000 on the black market, said Amanda Pumilia, the SPCA’s Animal Control Supervisor.

His was a refined operation, the SPCA acknowledged.

Tran purchased the property in 1996, according to assessment records. Investigators guessed by the breadth and sophistication of the business that it was years in the making.

The roosters were in good shape, all healthy and well cared for. He had air conditioning and at least four tons of feed.

Still, the SPCA described the enterprise as a massive facility for animal cruelty, with birds bred specifically to kill or be killed. If roosters don’t die during the matches, they often have their eyes pecked out, their bones broken or gashes so deep it slices their organs, the animal advocacy group noted. They are worth little at that point, and often left behind to die. “Cockfighting is an inhumane practice where intentional pain is inflicted upon another living creature for the sake of barbaric entertainment,” Zorrilla said. “And any complaints of such activity are taken very seriously.”

At Tran’s home Wednesday, her organization, with help from the New Orleans Police Department, discovered 235 of the weapons commonly strapped to the roosters’ legs during fights — spikes and curved knives meant to maximize injury during the clandestine matches. Each of the tiny implements was kept in a hand-made leather sheath, and stored in intricately-detailed custom boxes, with roosters carved into the sides and slats to hold each of the hundreds of individual weapons.

There were shelves full of antibiotics, syringes, vitamins and steroids, injected into the birds to make them bigger and tougher. Investigators also discovered multiple large trophies from competitions with names like “Super Cock.”

In 2008, Louisiana became the last American state to outlaw cockfighting, and the high-stakes gambling that traditionally goes along with it. It is a popular pastime across the county, passed down through generations in rural communities. In Louisiana, it was predominantly practiced in Cajun cultures. Though the sport is now outlawed in every state, it remains legal in other countries, such as Mexico, France, Italy and Spain. Some have large arenas, where families watch the bloody show together.

Tran was charged Wednesday with felony animal cruelty, misdemeanor cockfighting and a municipal charge of being in possession of illegal exotic animals. New Orleans outlawed roosters earlier this year.

Court records were not yet available Wednesday afternoon.

Had Tran been charged with cockfighting alone, he would have faced no more than a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. It is a misdemeanor offense, and Zorrilla said she hopes that Wednesday’s raid might provoke the state Legislature to consider upping it to a felony.

The SPCA, meanwhile, carried each bird, one by one, out of the facility. Each was examined by a veterinarian, put in an individual crate and stacked inside an air-conditioned 18-wheeler. There were so many birds, the truck had to make multiple trips from Tran’s home on the fringe of New Orleans East to the SPCA’s headquarters on the West Bank.

Dozens of employees began at 6:30 a.m., and anticipated that they would work late into the night, cataloging, examining and transporting each bird. They will be held for a time as evidence.

The SPCA anticipates that it will easily find homes for the hens. But roosters, naturally aggressive, are harder to dispose of.

The organization rescued 104 from a West Bank breeder last year, and each had to be euthanized, Pumilia said. Most of those rescued Wednesday will likely suffer the same fate.

http://theadvocate.com/home/6784840-...d-from-illegal

3,000 birds rescued in NY cockfighting bust
Officials in New York arrested nine people and rescued more than 3,000 birds in one of the largest cockfighting stings in U.S. history.

20 hr ago |By Tom McElroy of Associated Press

NEW YORK — More than 3,000 birds were rescued in a three-county cockfighting takedown in New York this weekend that resulted in nine felony arrests, according to the state attorney general's office. In a statement released Sunday night, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said it was the largest cockfighting takedown in New York state and among the largest in U.S. history.

"Operation Angry Birds" simultaneously targeted locations in Queens, Brooklyn and Ulster County with assistance from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Ulster County sheriff's office, Schneiderman said. "Cockfighting is a cruel, abusive and barbaric practice that tortures animals, endangers the health and safety of the public and is known to facilitate other crimes," Schneiderman said.

At the cockfights, spectators were charged admission fees and an additional fee for a seat within the secret basement location that housed the all-night fights, authorities said. Alcohol was sold without a permit and owners and spectators placed bets on the fights with individual wagers reaching $10,000.

In Queens, authorities raided a cockfighting bimonthly event where 70 people were taken into custody, including six who were arrested on felony prohibition of animal fighting charges. The ASPCA took control of 65 fighting birds, authorities said.

In Brooklyn, a pet shop was raided where 50 fighting birds were rescued from a basement beneath the pet shop. The pet shop's owner was arrested on a felony charge and cockfighting contraband, including artificial spurs and syringes used to inject performance enhancing drugs into the roosters, were also found.

The pet shop owner was charged with prohibition of animal fighting, prosecutors said.

Authorities also raided a 90-acre farm in Plattekill, rescuing as many at 3,000 birds. The farm's owners charged rent to cockfighting enthusiasts from various other states, including, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts to board, feed and care for roosters that were bred and trained to fight, prosecutors said. A farm manager and a farm hand at the scene were arrested.

Authorities said the roosters had razor-sharp gaffs attached in place of their spurs and were locked in small pens to be wagered on. The ASPCA has established a temporary shelter to house and care for the animals.

In New York, cockfighting and possession of a fighting bird at a cockfighting location are felonies and each charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in jail and a fine of up to $25,000, according to the attorney general's office. Paying to attend one of these events is a misdemeanor and carries a possible sentence of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/30...snews11&stay=1