Cockfighting is a disgrace and a crime, and Kentucky needs to get tougher on it | Opinion

When I served as Territorial Veterinarian for the Guam Department of Agriculture, I saw a steady stream of brightly colored roosters shipped to our little island in the Western Pacific jammed in U.S. Postal Service boxes. The flightless birds made a 6,000-mile journey, without food or water, from places like eastern Kentucky, middle Tennessee, and south Alabama.

Why? For cockfighting.

During my final five years of service to the Guam Department of Agriculture (2018 – 2022), I saw nearly 12,000 fighting birds land on our shores. The pro-cockfighting governor didn’t do a thing about it, even though transporting a fighting animal is a federal felony.

That’s why it’s so important to cut it off at the source, and why I support SB 243 introduced by Sen. Greg Elkins, R-Winchester, to make cockfighting a felony in Kentucky. That policy is overdue.

Kentucky is an epicenter of the American and global cockfighting industry, with major traffickers shipping birds all over the world. A strong state law, with felony-level penalties, will shut down 90 percent of this industry.

I can offer a unique expert perspective as a meat eater, a rancher, a hunter, a veterinarian, and a staunch advocate of animal agriculture. I strongly oppose cockfighting and here’s why: Animal agriculture is a noble enterprise, providing sustenance for billions of people and livelihoods for millions (including thousands in our state). Cockfighting, on the other hand, is a disgrace and a crime, providing no benefit to anyone but the people who enjoy animal bloodletting and who illegally wager on staged fights between birds armed with knives or curved ice picks on their legs.

I grew up on a ranch and embraced animal agriculture long before I became a veterinarian. Cockfighting bears no resemblance to animal agriculture. There are no standards of care, there is no proper utilization of the animals, there is no service or value to the American consumer. Animal abuse is built into the marrow of cockfighting, and mutilation of animals is its very purpose.

If we in animal agriculture do not distinguish between this kind of evil and proper and acceptable uses of animals, we will see people turn away from animal agriculture.

We know fighting arenas are strewn throughout Kentucky. Last year, Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) conducted undercover investigations and founded an informants’ network, and along with Animal Wellness Action, the groups released a list of 16 cockfighting arenas from Butler to Pike counties that have illegally operated in the state.

SHARK obtained drone footage from numerous cockfighting arenas with hundreds of cockfighting enthusiasts dispersing after learning of the surveillance. The organizations released the actual coordinates of these fighting venues — a first-ever disclosure of this number of fighting arenas in any state in the nation. While enforcement has stepped up, law enforcement is hobbled by an archaic state statute that provides only misdemeanor penalties for these malicious crimes.

We also know that cockfighting is a public health issues, as the presence of the fighting pits and the cockfighting breeders is particularly alarming in light of the Avian Influenza virus that has spread to Kentucky and 47 other states.

The connection between cockfighting and avian diseases is detailed in a scientific report from me and my veterinarian colleague Jim Keen, D.V.M., Ph.D.. There have been 15 introductions of vND into the United States since 1950, 10 of which occurred via the illegal smuggling of game cocks across our southern border from Mexico. (Virulent Newcastle disease is endemic in Mexico and all of Latin America.) Just three of those outbreaks cost the federal government more than $1 billion.

Before working for the Guam Department of Agriculture, I served as a full Colonel who led the U.S. Veterinary Command. I traveled throughout Asia and saw the ugly face of cockfighting in the Philippines, Vietnam, and other Asian nations.

There is simply no other rationale for the shipment of very expensive adult roosters from Kentucky to these Pacific Rim territories and nations. Guam has no commercial poultry industry, and no show-bird industry, so the movement of thousands of birds from breed types used for cockfighting from Kentucky is illegal contraband under federal law.

Kentucky has been an outlier on cockfighting, having some of the weakest penalties in the nation for this malicious crime against animals and civil society. The excuse-making must stop. I ask all state lawmakers in Frankfort to get behind S. 243 by Republican Senator Greg Elkins.

Cockfighting has thrived in Kentucky because for too long, we didn’t take it seriously enough. Let’s turn that around right away.

Col. Thomas Pool is senior veterinarian with Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.