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| Cockfighting is big business in Puerto Rico. |
Puerto Rico's white sandy beaches make the island a popular vacation destination. But with more than 175,000 cockfights taking place at this tropical locale every year, it's no paradise for gamecocks, the specially-bred birds used in cockfighting.
Cockfighting is a centuries-old bloodsport in which two or more gamecocks are placed in an enclosure to fight, for the primary purposes of gambling and entertainment. Although cockfighting remains legal in Puerto Rico, it is nonetheless widely viewed as a gratuitous form of animal cruelty, just as is dogfighting or other forms of staged animal combat. Puerto Rico's main daily paper, El Nuevo Día, recently released a report revealing that the majority of the population does not support government regulation or financial incentives to benefit the cockfighting industry.
Humane Society International has launched a campaign to eliminate cockfighting in Puerto Rico.
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You Can Help |
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 Never attend a cockfight.
Write to your legislators and urge them to ban cockfighting.
Write letters to the media to increase public awareness of the dangers of cockfighting.
Speak out when you see corporations or government entities promoting cockfights.
Sign up to receive action alerts and other items from Humane Society International. To join as an e-activist, click here. |
Forced to Fight
Cockfighting causes immense suffering, usually resulting in the death of one of the birds and often the death of both. The birds cannot escape from the fight, regardless of how exhausted or injured they become. Common injuries include punctured lungs, broken bones, and pierced eyes. Such severe injuries occur because the birds' legs are usually fitted with postizas— ice pick-shaped artificial spurs made of hard plastic. These spurs are designed to puncture and mutilate. They are often deadly.
While it is true that birds in the wild will fight over food, territory, or mates, such struggles are generally only to establish dominance within a group (the pecking order) and seldom result in serious injury. This natural behavior is quite different from what happens in staged cockfights, where pairs of birds, bred for maximum aggressiveness (and sometimes given steroids or other drugs to make them more successful fighters) are fitted with deadly weapons and forced to fight to the death, or until a winner is declared.
Cockfighting's Social Ills
Cockfighting not only spawns unconscionable animal abuse, but it is also a magnet for other social ills including narcotics sales, illegal firearms possession, illegal gambling, public corruption and human violence. In fact, a quick glance at the police blotters on the pages of local newspapers in Puerto Rico shows several violent incidents—including at least one homicide—connected to cockfighting events in 2007 alone.
Sadly, many who attend cockfights make the events a family affair—bringing young children along and exposing them to inordinate animal cruelty. This exposure can dull the sensitivity of children to animal suffering and normalize violence. And studies have shown that children who grow up in a climate of violence are more likely to perpetuate such behavior against others—both animals and people.
To learn more about cockfighting, click here.
Published July 20, 2007.
