According to animal control and sheriff’s department representatives, police broke up a big cockfighting event over the weekend and said they were forced to put down around 150 roosters they found at a home in Southern California.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that when officers arrived at the Jurupa Valley farm late on Friday, they discovered 200 people present as well as “evidence of an illicit cockfighting event and several murdered or critically wounded birds.”
143 other birds were found in cages on the facility, which is about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, the statement said.
The Humane Society of the United States describes cockfighting as a bloodsport in which two or more “gamecock” birds engage in a pit, usually to the death, for entertainment and betting.
The practise, which is unlawful in all 50 states, is often connected to other criminal activities, such as illegal gambling, drug trafficking, gang activity, and the sale of illegal firearms, according to the organization’s website.
According to a statement from that organisation, the Department of Animal Services employees gathered all of the live roosters and “humanely slaughtered them, a process that lasted until approximately 6 a.m.”
“Due to their high worth and probability of returning to a cockfighting ring, these birds cannot be adopted out by Animal Services; as a result, the birds must be euthanized.
They are not suitable as pets “based on a statement by the organisation.
According to officials, an unnamed man who claimed to be the owner of the birds was charged with misdemeanour possession of combat weapons used in cockfighting.
The investigation is still going on.
According to the Humane Society, cockfighters have unintentionally been murdered by their own animals when they were slashed by the razor-sharp steel blades, or “gaffs,” that are often attached to the birds’ legs.
The Humane Society claims that cockfighting birds often suffer from animal abuse, such as being given steroids injections and being denied stimulation before to fights.
They regularly suffer injuries in the ring, including as lungs that are punctured and eyes that are injured.
133 birds were seized earlier this year by Texas officials from a home in southeast Dallas where a cockfight allegedly took place. The SPCA of Texas received the 123 roosters, eight hens, and two dead roosters.
Cockfighting is not only legal but very common in countries like the Philippines and the Dominican Republic, where it was only temporarily outlawed owing to the COVID-19 epidemic, while being illegal in the US.
Puerto Rico defied the United States government in 2019 and enacted a measure to retain the 400-year-old tradition of cockfighting that is still practised on the island, despite a federal ban that went into force same year.
The Supreme Court chose to sustain the decisions of the lower courts despite Puerto Rican authorities’ claims that the U.S. government outlawed fights because it was bad for business rather than for the welfare of animals.