Groups say KY a ‘breeding ground’ for global cockfighting, call for federal crackdown
Animal welfare groups announced a push Thursday to get federal authorities to investigate Kentucky businesses that raise roosters for cockfighting, saying Kentucky has become a hub for alleged illegal trafficking in the birds.
The groups, Animal Wellness Action and the Animal Wellness Foundation, said their investigation shows Kentucky is home to several operations that ship thousands of roosters to the Philippines, Honduras, Mexico and other countries in apparent violation of federal law.
“Kentucky has become a breeding ground for the global cockfighting industry,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, said in a video news conference.
The groups sent letters to Kentucky’s two top federal prosecutors asking them to work with other federal agencies to investigate and prosecute major rooster producers.
Federal agencies that can investigate cockfighting include the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Postal Service.
Federal law makes it illegal to fight animals, but also to possess, sell, deliver, train and transport fighting animals, including roosters, according to the groups. It’s also illegal to use the mail to further animal fighting, they said.
They released a report highlighting seven such operations in the state, including video of interviews with the proprietors that aired in the Philippines, a key venue for cockfighting.
The report cited breeding operations in Clay, Henry, Nicholas, Warren, Adair and Nelson counties.
The prevalence of big breeding operations in Kentucky shows the need for greater enforcement, said Marty Irby, executive director of Animal Wellness Action.
“Law enforcement should put a stop to their lawbreaking and animal cruelty without delay,” Irby said.
Pacelle said the investigation of cockfighting started in Guam, where the animal wellness groups tracked shipments of birds to identify 71 operations in the U.S. that sent 9,000 roosters to Guam in three years.
That just scratched the surface on the scope of the illegal activity internationally, Pacelle said.
“There’s a remarkable amount of illegal animal fighting going on,” Pacelle said, as well as breeding.
Roosters involved in cockfighting typically have sharp blades attached to their legs. The fights often leave the birds injured or dead.
Cockfighting has long been common in Kentucky.
Federal authorities busted a cockfighting operation in Floyd County, in Eastern Kentucky, in 2014 that had thousands of members and drew spectators from several states.
The release from the animal wellness groups pointed out that in the same year, Matt Bevin, who was running to unseat U.S. Mitch McConnell in the Republican primary, attended a pro-cockfighting event in Kentucky.
Bevin told the Times-Trubune newspaper in Corbin he didn’t know that was the subject of the rally, though organizers said the purpose of the event was not ambiguous.
Bevin lost that race but was elected governor the next year.
Opponents of cockfighting believe one reason Kentucky has a large number of producers and fighting arenas is that is it one of only eight places where cockfighting is only a misdemeanor under state law. It is a felony in most states.
There also appears to be some confusion in Kentucky over whether cockfighting is illegal.
A group called Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, recently released video that showed two sheriff’s deputies in Clay County went to a local arena during a cockfight in June and didn’t make any arrests.
A deputy the group’s president talked with by telephone that night assured him cockfighting was not illegal, the video showed.
Former state Attorney General Chris Gorman, whose office argued to uphold the law against cockfighting when he was in office from 1992 to 1996, said it is clear from court rulings that cockfighting is illegal in the state.
But those rulings have merely upheld a weak law, said Gorman, who is on the law enforcement council of Animal Wellness Action and took part in the news conference.
During the news conference, state Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat, said there will be a proposal in the legislature next year to toughen Kentucky law against cockfighting.
Animal welfare groups would like the state to make cockfighting a felony and also criminalize related activities such as breeding the birds to fight and attending a cockfight.
“Our laws still lag behind other states,” McGarvey said.
Even with the call for federal authorities to investigate cockfighting, Gorman said Kentucky’s law needs to be tougher because federal law enforcement has many other priorities.
Most law enforcement is done at the state and local level, and police in Kentucky need better tools, he said.
“Cockfighting is a bloody and barbaric practice, and state law should align with the federal government’s tough policies on this form of animal cruelty,” Gorman said. “It should be a felony.”
