Our Offensive Against Cockfighting Crimes in Texas and on the U.S. Border with Mexico

Staged animal fighting is not only one of the most sickening forms of human cruelty, it is one of the most widespread.

We concur with an assessment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that there may be 20 to 25 million fighting birds reared in the United States for fighting purposes, spread out across as many as 150,000 backyard gamecock-growing operations. These birds are bred and trained to fight and then conscripted into combat at illegal pits throughout the United States and across the world, with particularly brisk trafficking of fighting animals to Mexico and the Philippines.

Criminals in the animal-fighting underworld profit from selling and trafficking of fighting birds, with a single bird sold for as much as $2,000. And the amount wagered at cockfighters is mind-boggling. In 2022, more than $13 billion was wagered on cockfights in the Philippines alone. And in the Philippines, it’s an organized-crime racket. That year alone, 32 people were abducted in cockfighting-related kidnappings.

There are regular mass shootings at the cartel-controlled cockfighting venues in Mexico. And even more than in the Philippines, it’s U.S-raised fighting birds at the center of the action at cockfighting pits south of the border.

We are focused on halting the illegal trafficking of fighting animals to foreign nations. If we stop the trade, the U.S. cockfighting suppliers won’t have these lucrative markets for their fighting birds.

While the federal government has stepped up its work to break up dogfighting rings — responding to the pressure we’ve applied for more robust enforcement — it has been anemic when it comes to enforcing our federal law against the trade in fighting animals and cockfighting itself. This must change, and we aim to be the driving force behind that change.

Stepping Up Activity Against Animal Fighting on All Fronts

The Center for a Humane Economy and our affiliates are the architects of two federal legislative efforts: 1) the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act, to create a special federal prosecutors’ unit to crack down on malicious cruelty, including animal fighting, and 2) the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act, to create a private right of action so citizens can sue dogfighters and cockfighters in circumstances where there has been no action from law enforcement.

While passing both measures is a top priority, we are not waiting until they are signed into law to act. We are working every day to investigate organized crime networks of animal fighters and to rattle them. We know who the players are and generally know where they are operating.

Last weekend, one of our top cockfighting investigators partnered with investigators at Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), which is our key partner in this work. They got a tip about a major cockfighting derby scheduled for Saturday in Mount Pleasant, in the northeast part of Texas.

When the investigators arrived on scene, our team came upon one of the largest gatherings of cockfighters on record, with the fighting arena situated between two major gamecock farms where the owner is breeding animals for the pit.

The team flew a drone and documented the entire setup.

Then they called law enforcement. With little hesitation, four marked vehicles from the Titus County Sheriffs’ Office responded, and our team showed them the aerial footage of the cockfighters’ setup. But that’s when someone in the sheriffs’ office chose not to turn the team loose to make arrests.

There were concerns, grounded on a lack of understanding of the features of a cockfight in progress, that there was not enough evidence to obtain a warrant to get onto the property and apprehend the perpetrators.

The sight of cockfighters abandoning their vehicles and fleeing through the woods should alone have been plain evidence to law enforcement that they were present at a crime scene. If they had nothing to hide, they shouldn’t have scattered like that.

Our team knows exactly what a fighting setup looks like. And this was one on steroids. 

Zero Tolerance for Animal Fighting

We are publicly calling out this criminal operation and broadly alerting law enforcement everywhere about the markers and features of animal fights, so they don’t miss opportunities to apprehend those involved in this kind of lawlessness.

Texas is an especially important state in our fight to eradicate animal fighting. It is the largest border state with Mexico, with cross-border trafficking of fighting birds to and from Mexico numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions every year.

In Texas, there has been a steady drumbeat of cockfighting interdictions, including fights in Galveston, where nearly 100 birds were seized in a large-scale cockfighting operation; in Potter County, where more than 160 roosters were seized and, according to the sheriff, “many” participants were “unlawfully” in the United States; in San Jacinto, where suspects were “expected to face multiple felony charges, ranging from animal cruelty, cockfighting, illegal gambling, unlawful weapon possession, organized crime, and federal firearm possession by illegal immigrants; in Cherokee, where two dozen were arrested on similar charges; and in Lynn County, where the sheriff brought felony charges “because of organized criminal activity.”

There have been a series of interdictions at the border, including a law enforcement action where officers “made an unusual discovery, roosters deeply hidden within passenger vehicles,” according to press releases. Border Patrol and Customs seized this shipment of fighting implements from Mexico City. And in February, CBP officers working at the Paso Del Norte international crossing seized 180 rooster gaffs and 7,500 Viroton animal steroid tablets from a traveler arriving from Mexico.

And when we work with law enforcement to bust a cockfight, we don’t just put a stop to animal cruelty. We stop a wide range of lawless behavior that poses a danger to animals and people in our communities.

That’s not just our opinion. The National Sheriffs’ Association, which treats the FIGHT Act as a top legislative priority, “acknowledges animal fighting is a crime of violence” with “links to crimes against people including, but not limited to, child abuse, murder, assault, theft, intimidation of neighbors and witnesses, and human trafficking.”

Seventeen state sheriffs’ associations, representing all the sheriffs in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, are also backing the FIGHT Act. And when they back the legislation, they are conveying their view that these crimes of violence are a major problem for our nation.

Just two weeks prior to the incident in Mount Pleasant, Animal Wellness Action and SHARK investigators were on the ground at cockfights in Martin County, also in Texas, and, just over the Oklahoma border, in Murray County. After our teams documented and then called in the crimes to local law enforcement, cockfighters scattered. We are working on follow-up investigations in these jurisdictions now that we’ve gathered critical evidence.

I know you understand the effort and risk taken by our investigators in sniffing out and breaking up these fights. Will you support our ongoing investigations into these despicable, corrosive activities?

And will you alert your lawmakers to the urgency of the federal legislative initiatives? You can write to them in support of the ACE Act and also the FIGHT Act. Just follow the links, and our advocacy tool can quickly generate a letter for you and send it.

We have strong and vital state and federal laws against animal fighting, but we want to make them better. But just as important, we must enforce the laws on the books. We cannot create a humane and civil society with this underworld of cruelty operating in dark corners throughout our nation and across the world. We must pull it up by the root and let the perpetrators know that they risk their freedom and their assets if they persist in staging knife fights between animals.