Published: August 09, 2009 10:49 pm      

Humane Society still wants to make cockfighting a felony

CHARLESTON — Editor’s note: Some of the descriptions in this story are graphic.



John Goodwin can’t shake the most horrific spectacle of animal cruelty stashed in his memory bank.

Accompanying federal and state authorities, the man overseeing animal fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States was in Tennessee on a raid back in May.

Two fighting roosters, their lives drained by intense combat, lay dead, sprawled inside the ring where the flashing knives attached to their legs had given spectators something to gawk at in a brief span of a fight to the death.

So savagely had the two birds gone at each other that one had its intestines spilled out of its body and tangled in its feet.

“That was the worst I think I had ever seen, and I’ve been on a lot of these things,” Goodwin said in a telephone interview.

“It’s so vivid in my mind. It’s something you never forget. Cockfighting is a very severe form of animal cruelty. You see these two animals that are mutilated, that suffered a lot of pain, and it was done for something that has no redeemable value at all.”

In another such raid, Goodwin witnessed the “winner,” if one could apply the title, considering its internal organs were visible when it was lifted up by a wing.

“We had him euthanized on the spot to put him out of his misery,” he recalled.

“He’d just been cut open by that 2 1/2-inch blade that had been on the opposing bird’s heel.”

Goodwin feels time is on his side as the Humane Society pushes for a legal weapon to combat cockfighting — making the activity a felony, meaning anyone convicted of engaging in it heads to prison, rather than paying a token fine as a misdemeanor.

West Virginia remains one of 11 hold-out states where a small fine is the only penalty, but that might change.

At least the Humane Society hopes the state will get on the bandwagon.

Rooster fights have been common across the South for a long time, but the times, they are a-changin’, and the society likely will try again with legislation in the 2010 session.

“We haven’t decided yet, but there probably will be something,” he said.

“We’re on our way to getting cockfighting to be a felony in all 50 states. I think there probably will be something (fresh legislation) in West Virginia.”

For now, the Humane Society’s attention is riveted on Ohio, since its legislature is returning from a summer break and a felony measure has been approved by a committee in the House, poised for a showdown.

Back in 1998, when the Humane Society accelerated its efforts to make cockfighting a more serious crime, only 17 states had such statutes on the books, and the activity was legal in five states. Today, only 11 states have refused to elevate the offense to felony status.

Besides West Virginia, the others are Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah and Hawaii.

“Virginia made it a felony this year and we have heard from informants that a lot of Virginia cockfighters have moved their operations to West Virginia and Kentucky, where penalties are weak,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin says many spectators are drawn into cockfighting by the allure of gambling, the chance to walk off with the pool of cash put up in entry fees before the birds enter the ring. If caught, under the misdemeanor statute, the fine is tiny, contrasted with the jackpot one could win, he pointed out.

“We’ve had people come up to us in Tennessee and Oklahoma, when working on anti-cockfighting campaigns, and complain their no-good son-in-law was causing their grandchildren not to have good food or clothes to wear to school because he was gambling the family nest egg at cockfighting,” Goodwin said.

Given a rooster’s instinctive penchant for squabbling over the best corner of the barnyard, Goodwin said, breeders are adept at exploiting this to “exaggerate that characteristic.”

“It’s just like when they have hens that have been selectively bred and take the offspring to produce the most eggs,” he said.

“Generation after generation after generation. They breed the offspring and the next offspring.”

Soon, the poultry farmer is reaping huge dividends in egg production.

“They’re doing that with these game fowl so they have this artificial level of aggression,” Goodwin said.

“And with this incredible gameness, they’ll continue to fight, even when they’re cut off.”

Normally, fighting cocks reserve their punches for one another, but in rare instances, handlers have bled to death when a rooster turned its weapon on them and opened the main artery in the leg.

“We’re getting closer and closer to that magic of number of 50,” Goodwin said of the Humane Society’s campaign to make cockfighting a felony crime in all states.

“And I think when we get to that point, it’s probably going to be down to six guys in a field with their trucks in a circle with their headlights on.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com