4 January 16 - 22, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The recent arrests don’t necessarily mean there has been an uptick in cockfight- ing, and not all fights take place in rural communities, Davies says. “Unfortunately, what I have seen is an ongoing pattern of cases like this,” Davies said. “Over time, sometimes it can seem like there are more. But the sad reality is that an- imal fighting is and has been ongoing and further, it’s not just one particular area or another.” Cockfighting happens everywhere, Burns says. “It happens in backyards, on streets, ev- ery day.” Cockers Blend With Avian Enthusiasts I n Texas, owning, keeping or training a rooster for cockfighting is a state felony punishable by up to two years in jail. Own- ing a rooster because you like birds is perfectly legal. Despite being born and bred for violence, the American gamefowl is not illegal. Game- fowl farms are scattered across the country, and rare bloodlines, fit for competitive show- ing, can sell for thousands of dollars. Animal rights activists aren’t gunning for farmers interested in breeding beautiful birds. “You can breed them all day,” Burns said. “The issue is when you make them fight to the death.” It can seem incongruous for a govern- ment to allow breeding and selling game- fowl while explicitly outlawing cockfighting, yet that’s how it will likely re- main. Many breeders, including reputable ones, contend that their goal is to preserve specific breeds of chickens with unique ge- netic traits, not to facilitate cockfighting. And if some of the claims that the roosters are being bred for looks and heritage sound disingenuous, that’s because they are. Still, it’s fighting that’s illegal, not simply raising up a cranky chicken. Legal loopholes allow Texans accused of cockfighting to claim they are avian enthusi- asts following tradition. Cockers, who selec- tively breed the most aggressive birds and keep them in squalid conditions, are often easily able to avoid charges. At cockfighting farms, gamefowl are tied to a structure for their entire life until it’s showtime. At legal gamefowl breeding farms, the birds are kept in similar conditions. Distinguishing the two can be challenging. Illegal gaffs easily be- come legal “antique collectibles,” and per- formance-enhancing drugs are “multivitamins”. Unless there are dead birds with big gap- ing wounds and razor blades tied to their feet when police arrive on scene, making a case that a breeder was “knowingly” en- gaged in illegal activity can be tough. In 1976, federal law made dogfighting il- legal nationwide, and penalties have pro- gressively increased for any participation. But laws around cockfighting haven’t kept up. The last state to outlaw the practice was Louisiana in 2008. Texas has had legislation that addresses the bloodsport since 1907, but enforcement remained low for years, and the current law leaves much to be de- sired. Attending a cockfight is only a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine. “We need to strengthen the cockfighting law more and make sure that these penalties really kind of stick to what cockfighting cre- ates, which is a culture of lawlessness and obviously occurs with other felonious activ- ity,” said Shelby Bobosky, a representative of the Texas Humane Legislative Network (THLN). Most arrests related to cockfighting are the result of other investigations into sepa- rate crimes. Cockfighting hardly exists alone. Illegal alcohol sales, drug distribu- tion, illegal gambling and firearm violations are some of the most common charges ac- companying cockfighting busts. Unless in- vestigators witness active cockfighting, which is rare, their case typically relies on paraphernalia charges. “Having strong laws that can hold peo- ple accountable for abusing animals by making them fight, by being involved in any manner in animal fighting, holding people accountable is a big part of [preventing] it,” said Davies. President George W. Bush signed the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act in 2007, which made it a felony to transport dogs across state lines for the purpose of fighting. There is no law, how- ever, that prevents the transport of roost- ers, and finding roosters for purchase on Facebook takes minutes. Iron Beak Farm, a breeder in Kaufman County, posted on its Facebook page a photo of its new import clearance form to ship game- fowl to the Philippines. Cockfighting has been called the “national sport” of the Philippines, and the country has incredibly loose laws that allow for legal cockfighting. Iron Beak Farm says online its birds are not for illegal use, but did not respond to inquiries. The THLN firmly advocates for the Fight Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Animal Trafficking Act, a congressional effort at the national level that would reduce disparities in animal-fighting laws, particularly regard- ing the shipment of roosters. “That is something that needs to be done at a federal level, obviously, through inter- state commerce,” Bobosky said. “That is still allowed. And so that is something that Texas itself can’t fix.” The Surprising Argument In Favor “I ’m a fourth-generation gamefowl farmer, and when I grew up every- thing was legal,” said the president of the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, An- thony Devore. “To be able to say, I’m gonna take your heritage away from you because I don’t like you or I don’t like what you stand for, that’s my heritage and I’m not breaking the law.” The Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission (OGC) is a state version of the larger United States Gamefowl Commission, a nonprofit group that openly advocates for gamefowl breeders and lobbies to decriminalize cock- fighting. Heritage is a common cry of advocates for cockfighting. While there are bloodlines that trace back generations, and ethical breeders across the country who only show the birds, decriminalizing cockfighting is a far stretch from honoring tradition and avian enthusiasm. DeVore maintains that his organization is not dedicated to defending cockfighting but instead prioritizes farmers’ rights. “We don’t endorse any illegal activity,” said DeVore. “We don’t endorse that. We, at this point, are fighting for ownership rights.” Before “this point,” the OGC endorsed lo- cal politicians who drafted bills to reduce the criminal penalties for cockfighting. In 2023, Oklahoma Rep. JJ Humphrey filed a bill that would reduce the state penalty for cockfight- ing to a misdemeanor. The bill failed twice, as did a similar Senate bill filed by Oklahoma Sen. Lonnie Paxton. But the organization continues to campaign for amendments to the state’s laws and has gained the support of several conservative politicians who agree the penalties are too severe. Owning, keeping or training gamefowl for cockfighting is punishable by up to 10 years in jail per bird in Oklahoma. DeVore says sen- tences for cockfighting offenses that are more severe than drug charges are “not right.” State gamefowl commissions exist in Ar- kansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky and other Southern states. There is not an active group in Texas, though there is a national board member who represents the interests of the Lone Star State. “I don’t think we have any political plans to launch a political entity in Texas at this time,” DeVore said. “We were discussing it. We are a conservative, rural, farming type of political association. We feel like Texas would be like going to California or New York. We just think it’s too liberal to have an impact legislatively.” Perhaps only an Oklahoman advocating for reduced cockfighting penalties would com- pare Texas to so-called liberal havens such as California and New York. Texas has more farms and ranches than any other state; the Republican Party controls the state Senate and House of Representatives, and the governor and both U.S. senators are Republicans. DeVore is firmly against proposed legis- lation that would limit the transportation of gamefowl, claiming that the gamefowl in- dustry was once a $400-million industry in his home state. “The animal rights activists, they want to say, ‘You can’t sell them over there because they fight them over there.’ You’re gonna tell me I can’t sell to a foreign country? That’s funny. You’re creating financial hardships on the farmers here.” He uses a myriad of hot-button terms, like “criminal justice reform” and “human rights issue” to make his argument. DeVore creates lofty connections to property and ownership rights, claiming that such liber- ties are threatened by activists working to strengthen cockfighting laws. He also com- pared the assumed threat to Adolf Hitler’s fascist Nazi regime. “I don’t think we’re the enemy. If you look at the history of politics and what goes on in the world in 1937, there’s this guy named Ad- olf Hitler. The first thing he did was take away animal ownership rights. That’s one of the very first things he ever did in Germany.” (“The Nazis passed the world’s most pro- gressive animal-rights legislation,” Hal Her- zog, a Western Carolina University psychology professor who studies human attitudes toward animals, told The Atlantic in a story published last November. The re- gime enacted restrictions on hunting and banned the killing of pets for population control. It also banned Jews from owning pets. So DeVore is not wrong on his facts, though the suggestion that outlawing ani- mal cruelty is a slippery slope to Nazism seems more dubious than calling Texas a hotbed of liberalism.) To be clear, at this time, there are no ef- forts to outlaw the ownership or breeding of gamefowl chickens in the United States. Dallas Lawmaker Rewriting Laws R eady for a different kind of fight is Rep. Rafael Anchía, who will go into the upcoming legislative session swinging hard for animal rights. Anchía pre- filed House Bill 1795, which makes all ani- mal fighting-related offenses felonies, further strengthening the existing dogfight- ing laws and finally penalizing cockfighting at the same level. “This is a tough on crime bill,” Anchía said. “It’s targeted to also protect animals, which is an expression of our values as a community.” Unfair Park from p3 Nathan Hunsinger State Rep. Rafael Anchía and Assistant District Attorney Jessica Trevizo want tougher penalties for cockfighting. >> p6
