Fighting for their lives: The cruelty of cockfighting

The HSUS, which has pushed for stronger cockfighting laws for decades, is now advocating for legislation in the 11 states (Alabama, Georgia, Hawai'i, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah) that don’t prohibit owning, breeding or selling birds for fighting.

Because cockfights take place under the radar, it’s difficult to gauge whether their numbers are increasing or decreasing, Lassiter says. Federal authorities have shuttered multiple large cockfighting operations in recent years in states including Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky. “Many people have left the industry because of the passage of stronger laws or because they’ve been caught at a fight and arrested and fear legal trouble,” Lassiter says. “A lot of progress has been made over the years, but it’s still a serious problem.”

In the court of public opinion

Reever, who has participated in several cockfighting raids, finds the scenes disturbing on many levels. “When you go in and it’s a cockfight in progress,” she says, “you typically will pass by dead and dying birds—they’re just tossed.” The large number of children at the events is particularly upsetting, she says, and she believes they’re being desensitized to both the suffering of the birds and the illegality of the fights. “Sadly enough, it’s almost viewed as a family function.”

And yet, animal welfare advocates say public opinion has not turned against cockfighting the way it has against dogfighting. Reever notes that cockfighting participants often look down on people who fight dogs, believing that dogfights cause harm to “man’s best friends.” People who fight dogs are typically ashamed when they’re arrested, Reever says, because they know the community condemns their actions. People involved in cockfighting, in contrast, often strike a defiant tone, believing they’re carrying on a tradition and doing nothing wrong.

The different attitudes stem from the unfortunate reality that people simply don’t have as much empathy for roosters as for dogs, Lassiter says. And while many people believe animal fighting is wrong no matter the species, she adds, they often don’t realize how widespread cockfighting is, or how the birds endure long periods of extreme suffering.

Some legislators view cockfighting as a harmless part of the agriculture industry, and the fights can be seen as helping to fill hotels and boost the local economy. Some local sheriff’s departments are busy with other problems and choose not to prioritize cockfighting. “We sometimes have a hard time eliciting sympathy for these animals, and we have a hard time getting people to pay attention,” Lassiter says.

Although it’s illegal, cockfighting is also big business, and its participants aren’t shy about flexing their political muscle.

“We’re up against a very well-funded cockfighting industry,” Lassiter says, noting that in Oklahoma and Missouri, there are organized efforts to roll back the penalties for cockfighting and to make it legal to raise and sell birds for fighting. In Oklahoma, cockfighters formed a political action committee that raised $75,000 and donated about $40,000 to candidates in 2022. Multiple elected officials posed arm-in-arm with cockfighters at the state capitol before accepting endorsement checks.

Meredith Lee/The HSUS

The HSUS Animal Rescue Team and the Indiana Gaming Commission examine the grounds of an alleged cockfighting operation.

American fighting birds are highly prized around the world, creating a market for trafficking live birds to other countries, Lassiter says. Some U.S. gamefowl breeders sell thousands of animals a year, illegally using the U.S. Postal Service to mail them domestically and overseas—and not worrying about the consequences because enforcement is difficult. Lassiter recalls talking to one breeder who said he made $350,000 in a year, tax-free, selling fighting roosters for $2,000 apiece. “And this is just one guy in rural Tennessee,” she says. “We have no idea how much money is really in it, because, again, it’s all underground.”

The HSUS also combats cockfighting through the Law Enforcement Training Center, which offers courses in investigating and prosecuting animal crimes.

Trevor Whipple, a retired police chief from Vermont, has taught through the center for about five years and describes himself as an animal advocate. Whipple tries to raise his students’ awareness of the cruelty of cockfighting as well as its documented linkages to other crimes, such as illegal weapons sales. He notes that the FBI considers cockfighting a serious crime. In fact, it’s tracked in the National Incident-Based Reporting System as a “crime against society.”

“You might not be an animal advocate, you might not care about roosters,” Whipple tells his trainees, “but let me tell you what else is likely to be going on in these places, the linkages to human crimes.”

See our rescuers in action during the November 2022 rescue