Louisiana to Ban Cockfighting in 2008 (Last State)

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

Louisiana will ban cockfighting next year, becoming the last state to outlaw the blood sport, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Legislature.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco's office said she would sign the measure, which bans the rural tradition in which specially bred roosters fight to the death while spectators place wagers on the outcome.

For years, state lawmakers resisted animal rights activists' efforts to outlaw it, but they relented this year on the condition that the prohibition be delayed. It will take effect in August 2008.

New Mexico, the only other state where cockfighting was legal, outlawed the fights this month, increasing pressure on Louisiana lawmakers.

People in the cockfighting industry argued that an immediate ban would leave some of them with hundreds of chickens that are useless if the fights are illegal, because the animals are bred to fight. House members agreed that the cockfighters should have until next August to sell the birds or kill them off in fights.



Read more: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/Cockfighting.html

I think I'm going to be sick now!

It's a VERY small but vocal segment of the population that do this....

dog fighting is also rampant in New Orleans (or was). We found dead pit bulls
still on 2 inch chains attached to walls after Katrina hit. These sadistic people
got away with it for obvious reasons-many people never came back, the police
force was stretched thin...

Why haven't the people of LA taken charge in these matters, either on a personal,
or politcal way?

Personally, I've never seen any of this and I've lived here all of my life.

dog fighting is a huge money business and the people involved
are careful as not to get caught. They're also criminals and few people
are willing to be whistleblowers.

They all want to rush out and have their last thrill watching some roosters kill each other?

:shrug:

i think when we are taking a decision to wipe out an entire population of animals then it is right and fair to give it a little breathing room

only a minority of people watch gamebirds fight, and the real reason that they are being attacked because they attract the gamblers and it's in competition w. legal gambling, however, once the birds are extinct, this link to our past is gone forever, so it's rather difficult to just say ok, right now, kill them all today

these birds w. a testosterone level too high for our times to tolerate, they'll be gone soon enough, what's the hurry?

If the extinction of a number of species is at stake, I hope the scientific community will say something to that effect.

as far as i know the interest in preserving old school varieties of domesticated plants and animals is a specialty hobby

all of the varieties involved would have been bred originally from the domestic chicken which in turn is believed to be descended from the junglefowl

so it is not on a par w. losing species, it is on a par with losing varieties, if you look to dogs, i guess it would be the equivalent of all pit bulls and chows being exterminated in the usa, is it the right thing to do? i don't know, what i do know, is that these birds do love to fight, it's in their soul, and they are too difficult to keep as pets because of their combative nature

so there it is, i certainly don't advocate cock fighting or betting on these fights, on the other hand, the reality is that if there is no state left where the birds can fight, they will killed and that's the end of the line for their kind

After all, many people keep pet PBs and Chows who have never exhibited any desires to fight or attack. I once saw a PB attacked by a poodle mix. The PB looked at the poodle with mild surprise and kept on walking. So even with extreme provocation, the PB exhibited no desire to fight or even display aggression.

These are the only two states left to really make this hideous practice a serious crime.

It's a brutal, disgusting "sport," let me say that right off. I was invited by a student of mine. I went partly because of morbid curiosity, partly because I wanted the opportunity to talk this very bright boy's dad into encouraging his son to go to college, partly because I wanted to know why this ninth grader made more money than I did on illegal betting, and partly because I wanted to say "Yeah, I've been to an illegal cockfight."

Bets ranged from 50 to 1,000 dollars, and this was apparently a nothing fight, in what I call a "tract" warehouse on the weekend. In the bigger fights -- held in Barstow, so cockfighters from CA, NV, and AZ can meet centrally -- the betting can allegedly go as high as 50 thousand dollars on a single fight.

Most of the people there were Hispanic. I was told that anglos fought more in the South, and that they fight with Filipino rules, as opposed to Mexican rules. If I wanted to see a lot of white guys cockfighting, I'd have to go to a Filipino event, or one of the big championship events. I wasn't sure exactly the difference between the two rule systems; something about the attached spurs.

I also asked if they ate the chickens. They looked at me like I'd suggested that cat shit on a stick was a tasty after-dinner treat. Apparently the birds are so incredibly doped up with hormones and steroids that they're totally unfit for human consumption (much worse than a chicken farm).

As to the "yes and no" answer to whether or not the states enforce the law: it's virtually impossible, and very, very low priority. Unless the police stumble across a noise complaint or something, it's rarely enforced. It's such a closed society, it'd be on the level of infiltrating the mob. Add to that the foreign connection -- Spanish language, mostly, and among recent immigrants from MExico where cockfighting is legal, and it gets even harder. So you've got a limited number of police personnel capable of even understanding what the hell's going on: whom do you devote them to? Smugglers of drugs and people, gangs, serial rapists, or cockfighters? I'm not saying it's right (far from it: it's horrific), but that's the way it'll be for a couple of generations more, at least.

Nevernose. Was discussing the topic yesterday with the owner of a local pet shop (South Bay
area, LA) and was told that both cockfighting and dog fighting were pretty common in this area, too.
And as you say, low priority on police agenda. So why pass the laws if they aren't can't be enforced?
(Rhetorical).

What really needs to change is the public perception, even a the perception of an already extreme minority; laws are just one piece of changing societal norms.

I also notice that although a lot of money is at stake, dog and cock fighting seem to be predominant in poor and/or immigrant neighborhoods.

Education is another part of the problem, I guess, since SES is so closely tied with education level.

Hell, I don't know. Maybe it's just better to bust up a cockfight on accident than to come across one and not be able to do anything about it?

for example, the newcastle's outbreak a few years ago, which caused the u.s. dept. of agriculture to "depopulate" (kill) millions of chickens in los angeles county is believed to have been caused by an illegal bird brought for a cockfight -- this one disease outbreak cost the industry millions of dollars

the spread of disease caused by illegal cockfighting is a HUGE concern to the poultry industry, i am not sure that the answer is to drive the industry underground, but nobody asked me and i can kinda see both sides of it so don't know what to suggest

as a practical matter cockfighting is illegal in los angeles county, so is hiring illegal aliens tho, so what do you do? rich people want people willing to work for nothing and people willing to work for nothing bring their comforts and pleasures from home since that's what they can afford, poor people gamble because it's the only chance they have in life

Not what I was hoping when I clicked on this thread at all.


Come on, weren't some of the rest of you thinking the same thing?

:yoiks:

after cockfighting was legally banned--letting them fight while wearing itty, bitty, TINY boxing gloves.

I'm not kidding.

Honestly.

Just another black eye for Oklahoma--and yes, I believe it was actually proposed in the state legislature.

:banghead:

Long time coming, and great to hear.

Thanks for posting. Rec'd.

NT

LA would not be the only state.

Jesus!