Return to Sender: The HSUS Asks the Postal Service to Stop Mailing Cockfighting Magazines |
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April 27, 2006
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| ©iStock photo |
| The U.S. postal service delivers magazines promoting illegal cockfighting, in violation of federal law. |
You might be surprised to learn who is keeping company with cockfighters these days. By allowing the proliferation of illegal cockfighting publications to circulate via U.S. Mail throughout the United States, the U.S. Postal Service (Postal Service) finds itself in the business of delivering animal cruelty. The unlikely connection between cockfighting and the Postal Service has prompted The HSUS to make its own delivery—that of a
formal legal petition requesting immediate action by the Postal Service.
Circulating Cruelty
With a circulation of more than 10,000 subscribers between them, two nationally circulated cockfighting magazines,
The Feathered Warrior and
The Gamecock, shamelessly promote cruel and illegal cockfighting activities—and they use the Postal Service to do it.
The magazines are packed with upcoming cockfight schedules, and advertisements for fighting birds and the implements of illegal fighting such as gaffs and knives (sharp instruments strapped to the birds' legs). Although illegal in 48 states, cockfighting remains a multi-million dollar business in the United States, thanks in much part to these publications that facilitate the commerce of the illicit industry.
Despite their shameless promotion of illegal animal cruelty, The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock are regularly sent in the U.S. mail to subscribers across the country. Not only do these magazines frustrate federal law enforcement official's efforts to enforce laws against cockfighting, but federal law is plainly violated to mail them at all.
The federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) provides that "[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly use the mail service of the U.S. Postal Service…for purposes of promoting or in any other manner furthering an animal fighting venture."
By continuing to deliver The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock, however, the Postal Service is helping to ensure that the network of illegal cockfighting remains alive and well across the country.
Cockfighters' Tricks of the Trade Unveiled
Doubt that The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior are engaged in actively promoting "animal fighting ventures" in violation of federal law? Consider the following:
- An HSUS investigator, posing as a cockfighting breeder, was recently told by the publisher of the Feathered Warrior that an advertisement for fighting birds and for gaffs (sharp knives attached to the birds' legs during a fight) could be run for a price of $130.
- When the HSUS investigator made the same inquiry to the publisher of The Gamecock, he was told that the magazine had "no problem" running advertisements for fighting birds, but was advised to include a disclaimer in the ad stating the birds were for "show purposes," in order circumvent the federal law prohibiting the interstate commerce in fighting animals.
- The January 2006 Feathered Warrior contains advertisements for "the Gamest Cocks Alive", and "Cocks" who "demand respect in the ring". It contains numerous ads for cockfighting supplies, such as hormones that encourage "pure aggression" to "prepare your cock for battle", and even "Articles of the Spur," which are knives and other weapons attached to the birds' legs for fighting.
- The January issue of The Gamecock had more than 10 advertisements for gaffs and knives, which are weapons attached to the birds legs in a fight.
These represent only a brief sampling of the dealings perpetrated by these illegal animal-fighting magazines. Neither the magazines nor their subscribers appear to make much of an effort to disguise their illegal intentions. Despite that, the Postal Service continues to operate as if these are legitimate, aboveground publications.
HSUS Takes Legal Action
Fortunately, an antidote to this appallingly flagrant violation by animal abusers is in the works. Armed with heaps of irrefutable evidence (courtesy of the cockfighters themselves), The HSUS is taking on the cockfighters and their flagrant abuse of the Postal Service. In a formal petition filed with USPS Postmaster and CEO John Potter, The HSUS requests,
(1) the USPS to declare "nonmailable" and to refuse mailing The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock magazines; and
(2) the USPS to revoke the periodical mailing privileges for The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock magazines.
The petition enumerates the many and varied ways in which The Feathered Warrior and The Gamecock regularly violate the AWA's prohibition on furthering and promoting animal fighting ventures. The petition also seeks immediate action by the Postal Service to end these flagrant violations of federal law.
The petition explains that halting the mailing of these animal fighting magazines is necessary "to promote animal welfare and to protect the public from criminal activities, violence, and the increased health risks associated with cockfighting, such as Newcastle's disease and avian influenza." Based on the criminal risks to animals and the public, the petition "requests that the USPS issue notices to its postal offices in De Queen, Arkansas and Hartford, Arkansas—and all the other offices from where the magazines may be mailed—mandating that The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior must be refused for mailing, seized, and disposed of, in order to ensure that these two cockfighting magazines no longer utilize the USPS for its illegal dealings."
To John Goodwin, The HSUS's Deputy Manager of Animal Fighting Issues, the issue is straightforward. "The underground cockfighting industry is sustained by commerce in fighting birds, in direct violation of state and federal laws. These magazines are used as vehicles for commission of these crimes," he says. "The United States Postal Service should apply the law and halt the cockfighters' ability to maintain such flagrant trade in fighting animals."
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