Cruel bloodsport continues despite link to bird flu, calling for passage of national FIGHT Act to stiffen penalties
Mays Landing, NJ — A grand jury in Atlantic County indicted 48 individuals Wednesday in connection with an illegal cockfighting operation, in which dozens of injured roosters, and dogs in poor condition were seized. Defendants were charged with animal cruelty, gambling on animal fighting, and resisting arrest.
News reports explain Det. Mark Kienzle of the Galloway Township Police Department uncovered a March 2024 cockfight. Law enforcement agencies, including the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, intervened and stopped the event at a rooster fighting arena.
“We applaud the grand jury as well as Galloway Township Police and the Atlantic County Prosecutor for working in tandem. Cockfighting is barbarism and bound together with an array of other criminal conduct,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.
The bust is one of several recent crackdowns on illegal cockfighting operations in the region. In a separate case in February, authorities in Plumstead Township, Penn., broke up an active cockfight inside a garage, where a suspect was found carrying steroids, metal spurs, and other cockfighting paraphernalia. The arrests highlight ongoing efforts to dismantle these illegal and inhumane operations.
This incident underscores the importance of the bipartisan FIGHT Act, introduced in the 118th Congress by Senators Cory Booker, D-N.J., and John Kennedy, R-La., which aims to strengthen animal welfare laws by banning the broadcasting and gambling of animal fights, restricting the transport of fighting roosters, and creating a private right of action for citizens who live close to cockfighting operations. New Jersey Representatives Josh Gottheimer, Thomas Kean, Bill Pascrell, Christopher Smith, and Jefferson Van Drew cosponsored the legislation.
The groups have heightened their advocacy for the legislation as bird flu (H5N1) continues its catastrophic spread across the country, making the zoonotic leap to other species, including humans, and causing the price of eggs to skyrocket.
Since the U.S. bird flu outbreak began three years ago, in February 2022, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA has depopulated (euthanized) 148.25 million bird flu virus-exposed or infected poultry on 690 commercial farms and 792 backyard flocks. Flocks in all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been infected. While “stamping out” may have controlled past bird flu outbreaks, the evidence is overwhelming that APHIS must find another path out of this ongoing and ever-expanding epidemic.
“With the virus thriving on animal-to-animal transmission pathways, and with cockfighting playing such a documented role in past spread of avian diseases — including bird flu and virulent Newcastle Disease — it is foolish for the USDA to ignore the 20 million fighting birds being trafficked across the United States and imported and exported,” said Colonel Tom Pool (ret.), DVM, MPH, senior veterinarian with Animal Wellness Action and the former chief of the U.S. Army Veterinary Command.
“The USDA is conducting mass killing of laying hens, but what about a stamp-out strategy for the fighting of birds, including enforcing our laws to halt dangerous commerce in these animals?”
Cockfighting activity is a known and substantial risk factor for bird flu H5N1 introduction, global spread, and human zoonotic infections. Cockfighting birds were responsible for two-thirds of all U.S. outbreaks of virulent Newcastle disease, a dangerous viral poultry disease very similar to bird flu.
“While there’s little we can do to stop wild birds from shedding the virus to hosts along the migratory flyways, there is something we can do about widespread transmission of the virus by cockfighters,” said Jim Keen, DVM, PhD, director of veterinary science for the Center for a Humane Economy and a former senior research scientist at USDA. “We can shut down their operations and arrest the people involved, thereby reducing risks to our commercial flocks and other keepers of poultry.”