Staged Animal Fighting Threatens Hunters and Environmentalists

Fighting dogs are chained for life in isolation, filth, and extreme temperatures. They’re pumped full of anabolic steroids to enhance muscle mass and aggressiveness. Vet care is out of the question, because state laws require medical specialists to report acts of cruelty by pet owners. And the perpetrators themselves are desensitized to the suffering of dogs. Defeated dogs are shot, electrocuted, clubbed to death, or dumped into the wild where they die slowly or heal and become feral, preying on game and nongame animals and competing with native predators.

When a female dog declines to be bred, she’s strapped body and head to a “rape stand.” “Parting sticks” are employed to pry open dogs’ mouths during combat.

It’s not just fighting dogs that are victimized. It’s pet dogs, too — our hunting dogs included. They are stolen and used as “bait animals” to train fighting dogs to maul and kill. Wild mammals are trapped and used for the same purpose. Impromptu “street fighting,” in which stolen dogs are forced to fight, is the fastest-growing type of dogfighting.

Because fighting dogs are kept in unsanitary conditions and lack vet care, they are riddled with parasites and pathogens. As a result, wildlife, including game and nongame birds and mammals, sicken or die, especially when defeated dogs are abandoned in the wild.

Humans are also sickened or killed by some of the parasites and pathogens spread by the fighting-dog industry — rabies, salmonellosis, leptospirosis, campylobacteriosis, scabies, giardiasis, ringworm, hookworms, tapeworms, toxocariasis, brucellosis, and antibiotic-resistant staph infections, to mention just a few.

Wanton abuse of “man’s best friend” riles the American public. Recall the outrage in 2007, when law-enforcement agents recovered 54 fighting dogs (American pit bull terriers) from the Virginia ranch of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, then the highest-paid football player in the NFL. Many of these dogs had sustained brutal fighting injuries.

The bust was coincident with the passage of the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act the same year, which amended the Animal Welfare Act by elevating dogfighting and cockfighting to felonies. Vick and co-defendants, who had used Vick’s ranch for raising fighting dogs and dogfighting tournaments, ultimately pleaded guilty to felony charges under the Travel Act. Vick was jailed for 23 months.

And recall the outrage elicited by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem when she revealed she had shot her puppy, Cricket, for “disobedience,” as if obedience is a natural trait of puppies.

Ethical hunters are committed to quick kills. That’s a big part of why we use dogs for upland birds and waterfowl. We hate to see wounded birds linger, and that includes fighting roosters.

Cockfighting Cruelty and Avian Disease

Just as brutal for the animals involved, cockfighting elicits less outrage from hunters and the general public than dogfighting. Janette Reever, a long-time animal fighting researcher, reports that people involved in dogfighting “are typically ashamed when they’re arrested because they know the community condemns their actions. People involved in cockfighting, in contrast, often strike a defiant tone, believing they’re carrying on a tradition and doing nothing wrong. Some legislators view cockfighting as a harmless part of the agriculture industry, and the fights can be seen as helping to fill hotels and boost the local economy.”

But what the hunting and environmental communities need to understand is that cockfighting kills game and nongame wild birds as well as game and nongame wild mammals.

To protect tethered roosters in their gamecock complexes, cockfighters routinely kill eagles, hawks, and owls. Roosters have natural spurs, but cockfighters extend them by attaching “gaffs” — i.e., curved spikes — to roosters’ legs. Gaffs are often fashioned from the claws of raptors that cockfighters kill and sometimes the shells of critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles that they illegally buy.

And there’s the disease threat. Under the guise of “breeding stock,” cockfighting fowl are shipped to the U.S. from Asian nations, especially Thailand and the Philippines, and from Latin American countries, especially Mexico.

There are mild and highly pathogenic forms of avian influenza (“bird flu”) and Newcastle disease. The highly pathogenic forms of both are rampant in the above countries, with the result that imported birds infect and kill domestic poultry along with our native gamebirds and nongame birds.

There is strict biosecurity at U.S. egg and poultry farms. There is little or none at foreign and domestic breeding facilities for fighting fowl. Roosters killed or badly wounded in cockfights are discarded in the wild, where they spread highly pathogenic bird flu and Newcastle disease.

The latter malady, fatal and highly contagious, spreads via feces, saliva, and nasal discharge. Symptoms include gasping, wheezing, coughing, green diarrhea, eye and beak discharge, tremors, leg and wing paralysis, lethargy, internal hemorrhaging, and death. The disease kills ducks, geese, wild turkeys, pheasants, partridges, and many other wild and captive birds.

Highly pathogenic bird flu is an even greater threat to biodiversity than virulent Newcastle disease, and not just to game and nongame birds. It also kills game and nongame mammals. But first, the threat to birds.

Bird Deaths

A nationwide panzootic (animal pandemic) of highly pathogenic bird flu that started in Indiana in 2022 has killed at least 185 million commercial and backyard captive birds (mostly chickens, turkeys, and ducks). The global outbreak started in Thailand with the trafficking of fighting birds.

Hunters should be aware that in 2022, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department had to “depopulate” (PR speak for euthanize) the 1,200-bird broodstock population at its Sheridan pheasant farm after suspected exposure to highly pathogenic bird flu

Texas and New York have had to depopulate entire pheasant farms for the same reason.

In 2022, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks insisted — against advice from independent wildlife biologists and national hunting organizations — in stocking pen-raised pheasants amid a highly pathogenic bird flu panzootic. The birds weren’t infected, at least at the time of stocking. Still, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Pheasants Forever, and Quail Forever condemned the stocking as a rash decision that prioritized short-term hunting opportunities over long-term ecological health

Hunters should also be aware that in 2023, highly pathogenic bird flu showed up at Martz’s Game Farm in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. As a result, 100,000 pheasants had to be euthanized. And the state Game Commission saw fit to do an early release of the 4,000 broodstock pheasants it had purchased from nearby Mahantongo Game Farm.

Highly pathogenic bird flu has also been documented in such popular game species as wild turkeys, quail, Canada geese, mallards, wood ducks, and green-winged teal.

Although the United States has culled nearly 200 million domestic birds since 2022 because of infection by or exposure to highly pathogenic bird flu, the disease continues to rage through wild and domestic bird populations.

“Because of disease spread, last year we lost approximately six million birds to mandatory depopulation efforts [by the USDA],” wrote poultry farmer Marcus Rust of Rose Acre Farms in a piece for the Greenfield, Indiana, Daily Reporter. (Rust also touched on another widespread toxin associated with cockfighting — organized crime. “I work closely with poultry producers in Mexico, and they tell me that the cockfighting arenas south of the border are controlled by criminal cartels,” he wrote. “These operations are a menace to legitimate poultry production.”)

And this from a paper coauthored by veterinarian epidemiologist Jim Keen and former U.S. Army head veterinarian Colonel Tom Pool:

Both virulent Newcastle disease and pathogenic bird flu have major economic impacts on poultry production, so the consequences of virulent Newcastle disease and highly pathogenic bird flu introduction or dispersal from cockfighting activity can be enormous. Consumer poultry product prices (eggs, meat) must increase with the culling of millions of poultry as the birds and their products (meat, eggs) cannot be sold or eaten. Three large virulent Newcastle disease epidemics in southern California over the past 50 years, mainly driven by cockfighting, resulted in 16.2 million domestic bird deaths or culls, mostly commercial poultry, at a total cost exceeding $1 billion. The 2015 and current 2022 U.S. highly pathogenic bird flu outbreaks have caused the deaths of more than 100 million poultry (and counting) at a cost of several billion dollars.

Mammal Deaths

Highly pathogenic bird flu has recently spilled over to wild and domestic mammals — foxes, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, bobcats, Canada lynx, muskrats, skunks, raccoons, fishers, weasels, martens, minks, river otters, sea otters, bats, opossums, sea lions, dolphins, seals, pet dogs (including hunting dogs), feral and pet house cats, feral and domestic pigs, horses, cattle, domestic goats, domestic sheep, and such zoo animals as tigers and leopards.

The panzootic is leaving windrows of sea lion carcasses along the west coast of South America from Peru and Chile to the southern tip of Patagonia and up the east coast through Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

Highly pathogenic bird flu has turned up in four seal species on the Antarctic Peninsula. Elephant seals suffer most. On South Georgia Island, drone surveys revealed a 47% decline in breeding females between 2022 and 2024. This was concurrent with the arrival of highly pathogenic bird flu.

Zoonotic Disease Risk to Hunters

Highly pathogenic bird flu and virulent Newcastle disease have even spilled over to humans. So the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and state game and fish agencies warn hunters to: 1. Avoid handling dead birds or shooting birds that appear sick; 2. Dress game in well-ventilated areas or outdoors; 3. Wear disposable gloves, eye protection, and masks while cleaning game; 4. Avoid touching intestines; 5. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling birds, even if gloves have been worn; 6. Keep raw game separate from other foods; 7. Use soap and water and a 10% bleach solution to disinfect knives, tools, and dressing tables; 8. Disinfect vehicles and boots; 9. Monitor for fever, cough, sore throat, headache, or difficulty breathing; and 10. Contact a healthcare provider if symptoms develop after handling birds.

For too long, federal enforcement has lagged behind the evolution of organized animal fighting — particularly in the arenas of online gambling, interstate trafficking, and asset forfeiture. The FIGHT Act addresses these gaps directly, equipping investigators and prosecutors with authorities commensurate to the scale of the crime.

Hunters, conservationists, public-health officials, and humane advocates rarely find themselves on the same side of a policy fight. Here, they already are. Lawmakers should take note — and act.