Colorado Senator Wayne Allard and Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson have introduced legislation to eliminate a loophole in the federal Animal Welfare Act which allows fighting birds to be shipped from states where cockfighting is illegal to states where the cruel "sport" is still allowed, Only three states permit this inhumane, bloody activity: New Mexico, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Currently, law enforcement officers have a difficult time cracking down on illegal cockfights in the 47 states where it is banned. When confronted, cockfighters merely claim that the fighting birds in their possession are destined for shipment to a legal cockfighting state. Prosecution of these unscrupulous cockfighters would be facilitated if the Allard bill (S. 345) and the Peterson bill (H.R. 1275) become law.

Cockfighting is a centuries-old bloodsport in which two or more specially hired roosters are forced into a pit to fight surrounded by gambling onlookers. Often, one or both birds die as a result of the fight because their feet are fitted with razor sharp steel knives. The birds may end up with punctured wings, broken bones and pierced eyes. Even the battle's "winner" may ultimately die from injuries sustained in the fight. And birds that survive but are deemed unfit to fight again are either killed by their owner or simply thrown in a garbage can to suffer and die.

Independent of Senator Allard's federal legislative initiative, there is a move underway in Oklahoma to prohibit cockfighting within the state, joining Missouri and Arizona which just banned cockfighting through citizen ballot initiatives last November. Oklahoma State Representative Charles Gray has introduced legislation to ban cockfighting specifically. Cockfighters in the state Such as Walt Roberts, however, object to people trying "to end the sport because it is not within their definition of what is humane" according to Oklahoma's Tulsa World newspaper.

But Representative Gray is not alone in his opposition to this horrible fighting. A statewide poll sponsored by the Tulsa World revealed 2 to 1 opposition to cockfighting: if a cockfighting ban were put to a vote, 65 percent of Oklahomans would vote in favor while only 30 percent would vote against. As long as there is powerful and vocal rural opposition in the state, however, it is unlikely that the legislature would vote to end the cruel practice of cockfighting. This makes passage of Senator Allard's federal legislation all the more important.

AWI Quarterly, Spring 1999, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 10