Cockfighting busts imperative given spread of bird flu threatening agriculture and human health
San Joaquin County, CA — Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy applauded San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office deputies for busting a criminal cockfighting operation along Atkins Road, east of Lodi Saturday, where they discovered 35 dead roosters, along with animal fighting paraphernalia and stadium seating for a fighting ring.
California banned cockfighting in 1905, but these staged battles remain the state’s most widespread form of illegal animal cruelty. The illegal sport is a breeding ground for avian influenza (H5N1 bird flu) that is spreading rapidly across the country posing a health risk to agriculture and humans, given the first human death occurred this past week in the United States.
“We thank San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office deputies for acting swiftly to bust this criminal cockfighting operation just as soon as they recognized this was a serious and deadly crime,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “Cockfighting is a crime of animal cruelty, bound up with illegal gambling, drugs, and violence that tears apart our safe communities. The illegal sport is a breeding ground for avian influenza, known as bird flu that poses risk to human health.”
California banned cockfighting in 1905, but the staged battles remain as the state’s most widespread form of illegal animal cruelty, tied to largescale breeding operations and documented shipments of fighting birds from California overseas, which is concerning given the spread of H5N1bird flu. Cases of infection involving dairy cows and poultry with mutated strains have dominated the news.
Experts now report detection of H5N1 in 66 human cases in the United States. The nature of this virus and its evolution in humans has grave implications for more severe outbreaks.
These discoveries, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, raise vast concerns about the evolving nature of H5N1 and its increasing threat to human health, as well as farm animals, wildlife and even pets, as cats have reportedly now died from the strain found in raw pet food.
The extent of the severity of the death toll is 124 million poultry that have died from bird flu or been culled on 588 commercial poultry farms and 726 ‘backyard’ farms in all 50 states. The virus has also infected at least 866 dairy cattle herds nationwide, and at least 61 poultry and cattle workers.
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy invite media to a press conference this afternoon at 1:30 p.m.. on bird flu tied to cockfighting.
Details on the press conference below:
MEDIA ADVISORY: Virtual Press Conference
VETERINARIANS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERTS TO DESCRIBE USDA’S BUNGLED RESPONSE TO BIRD FLU CRISIS
TODAY, January 9, 1:30 p.m. ET
Contact: Joseph Grove, senior director of communications
[email protected] | (502) 472-6225
WHAT
Two deeply experienced agricultural and public health veterinarians and infectious disease experts with Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy will lead a virtual press conference and provide a detailed critique of USDA’s woefully poor response to the H5N1 crisis and suggest course corrections as the Trump team prepares to take command of the zoonotic disease response.
Speakers will discuss the trajectory of the H5N1 virus, the timid approach to policy changes to prevent spread of the disease, and the overreaching efforts to depopulate more than 100 million poultry in the United States by inhumane methods. They also will address the role the FIGHT Act might play in squarely confronting the presence of 20 million fighting birds that are dangerous vectors for further spread of this zoonotic disease.
WHEN
TODAY, Thursday, Jan. 9, at 1:30 p.m. ET
LOGIN
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84625269582?pwd=xpbCXmJMJAg9DWSrZnWY0HvHal6k3X.1
Meeting ID: 846 2526 9582 | Passcode: 065709
SPEAKERS
- Dr. Jim Keen, D.V.M., Ph.D., director of veterinary sciences, Center for a Humane Economy. A former USDA research scientist and faculty member of the University of Nebraska School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Keen specializes in emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases of farmed animals. He has broad field experience in outbreak investigation and animal disease control including enteric zoonotic bacteria from livestock in the U.S., Foot and Mouth Disease in the United Kingdom, and African Swine Fever in the Caucasus, and virulent Newcastle Disease in the United States and Mexico.
- Dr. Tom Pool, D.V.M, MPH, Dipl. ACVPM, senior veterinarian, Animal Wellness Action. Dr. Pool earned his Master’s in Public Health (tropical medicine) degree from Harvard University, and doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Oklahoma State University. Colonel Pool was commander of the U.S. Army Veterinary Command before serving as Territorial Veterinarian for the U.S. Territory of Guam. He’s written peer-reviewed publications on leptospirosis and dengue hemorrhagic fever.
- Wayne Pacelle, president, Animal Wellness Action