Cockfighting involves serious cash and serious consequences
Gilroy – In South County, big money rests on backyard brawls, bloody clashes where blades fly and feathers flutter, where death settles thousand-dollar bets. The grisly sport is cockfighting, and though it’s nothing new, sheriffs say they’re getting wise to the game. Eight citations were issued this summer and fall – three in a single week in November – and come January, the rural rumbles will pack the punch of a felony charge.

“If you just looked at this, you wouldn’t think it was illegal,” said Deputy Gabe Sandoval, tracing a glinting talon-shaped blade, the barb that replaces a rooster’s natural spur to grisly effect. Behind him, gamecocks crowed raucously, as suited Animal Control officers wrangled them into submission, snapping silver labels around their feet.

From the road, you can hardly see the ramshackle wooden hut on Sycamore Avenue west of Morgan Hill, where 300 fighting roosters are haphazardly penned. But neighbors can hear it, and that’s how cockfights are often foiled. Matches draw as many as 60 spectators, who bet high and holler loud, scattering empty beer cans in their wake. Birds sell for $300 to $500, sometimes more; fights erupt over $10,000 prizes. Among rivals, it can get ugly, with pens torched and roosters slaughtered. Several California murders have been attributed to cockfighting disputes.

Even the roosters themselves are rowdy. Injected with steroids – “a rooster Red Bull,” says Sandoval – the birds are doubly aggressive. As officers corral them, their arms are criss-crossed with angry red scratches.

For fans, it’s like watching football on Sunday morning, says Sandoval. In Mexico, where cockfighting is legal, some embrace it as a folk tradition; in the Phillipines, it’s a national sport.

But animal rights groups aren’t amused.

“I don’t buy that,” said Curt Ransom, regional program manager for the Humane Society of the United States. As an investigator in Missouri, he said, “every cockfighter I knew of was Caucasian. It goes across cultural and financial barriers.”

The Humane Society backed Senate Bill 1349, which ramped up penalties for cockfighting statewide. As of January, prosecutors can charge a second cockfighting offense as a felony, with a maximum three-year prison sentence and $25,000 fine. The charges only apply to those caught fighting birds; watching cockfights, or owning gamecocks with intent to fight, will remain misdemeanor charges.

California will be the 33rd state to adopt felony cockfighting laws, following South Carolina and Arizona, where it was formerly legal. The sport remains fair play in Louisiana and New Mexico.

But legal penalties may not dissuade the sport’s high rollers. One owner cited by Sandoval made $50,000 to $80,000 every year shipping illegal birds – almost double the dough netted by his day job. That money isn’t taxed, which means he could also face an IRS audit. What’s more, the bloody sport inspires passion. Some cockfighters migrate from Fresno to bet on fights; another moved from Concord, just so he could keep his birds.

Meanwhile, gamecocks face a sad fate: euthanization by county Animal Control. Too vicious to be pets, the birds are typically killed on a judge’s order.

“They wouldn’t be any good to eat, either,” said Ransom. “Euthanizing them is the best for the birds themselves, as far as future fighting.”

Snuffing the birds is also for the benefit for other poultry. Santa Clara County has only two egg ranches, but gamecocks have been blamed for spreading Exotic Newcastle Disease to Central Valley hens. Last year, Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-CA 24th) slammed the sport as a “sadistic spectacle,” warning that smuggled roosters could carry the virus. In 2002, the California Poultry Federation launched a biosecurity campaign, educating owners of backyard flocks how to keep the birds free of disease.

“When you raise chickens for a profit, you don’t want them to die from some disease,” said president Bill Mattos. That includes gamecocks. “Some of these game birds are much more valuable. People who know what they’re doing practice high levels of biosecurity.”

Sheriffs say cockfighting busts will increase as law enforcement learns to recognize gamecocks. Sandoval pointed at one green-and-blue bird, strutting and pecking feistily at the bars of its cage. Its comb and wattle cropped, its spurs severed, it appeared oddly bald, the Vin Diesel of roosters.

“There’s no other reason to do that to a bird,” he said.

Previous articleMilton R. (Mitty) Hitchcock
Next articleEugene Cullom Biddle

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here