Cockfighting and the Spread of Bird Flu |
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August 17, 2006
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| HSUS |
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| A cockfighter sucks blood from the mouth of an injured chicken during a fight. |
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Despite being outlawed in 48 states and earning felony status in 32 states, organized cockfighting remains a large industry in some parts of the United States, with an estimated 40,000 Americans involved in the deadly blood sport. Twice each year, some U.S. cockfighters travel halfway around the globe to the World Slasher Cup in the Philippines, a four-day, international animal-fighting derby. Cockfighting aficionados from around the world converge, roosters in tow, to watch birds with knives strapped to their heels slash each other to death.
What does this bloody biannual battle have to do with bird flu? There is concern that when participants of the Slasher Cup—or any other international cockfighting event—return to their countries with any surviving birds, they may be importing an increased threat of a domestic avian flu outbreak.
Experts at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have directly implicated the movement of gaming cocks with the rapid spread of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus in Asia. More than any other industry, cockfighting involves the unregulated, often clandestine, transport of birds across borders, often from areas of high H5N1 infection to previously unaffected areas.
In 2004, Malaysian government officials blamed cockfighters as the main "culprits" for bringing the disease into their country by taking birds to cockfighting competitions in Thailand and bringing them back infected. Thailand, with an estimated 15 million fighting cocks, was eventually forced to pass a nationwide interim ban on cockfighting.
The director of Animal Movement Control and Quarantine in the Thai Department of Livestock Development explained what led to the ban: "When one province that banned cockfights didn't have a second wave outbreak of bird flu and an adjacent province did, it reinforced the belief that the cocks spread disease." A study in Thailand published in 2006 concluded, "We found significant associations at the national level between HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1] and the overall number of cocks used in cock fights."
Infected Cockfighters—Both Avian and Human
Birds forced to participate—and die—in cockfights aren't the only ones potentially infected with avian influenza; cockfighters may be at increased risk of contracting the disease, largely because they handle injured and bloody roosters.
During fights, it's not uncommon to see a cockfighter bend down mid-bout to try to suck the fluids out of a dying bird's airways to cruelly extend the length of the battle. In doing so, the cockfighters increase risk of infection. In a 2004 example from Thailand, the country's Department of Disease Control described a case of a young man who had "very close contact to ... fighting cocks by carrying and helping to clear up the mucus secretion from the throat of the cock during the fighting game by using his mouth." As one leading epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control commented dryly, "That was a risk factor for avian flu we hadn't really considered before."
Cockfighting Jeopardizing U.S. Safety
To date, the H5N1 avian influenza virus has led to the death of millions of birds around the world and roughly half of all humans known to be infected. Though the Philippines has not yet reported any cases of bird flu, the country is in the center of the region where this disease has had its most deadly impact.
Avian flu is spreading, and the United States should take steps to avoid needlessly exposing itself to the disease—especially from a source like cockfighting.
Americans should also be concerned by cockfighters' response to the threat of outbreak. In the December 2005 issue of The Gamecock, a nationally circulated cockfighting magazine, one writer instructed cockfighters to hide gamefowl in pet carriers in the event of an avian flu outbreak. He warned fellow cockfighters to "keep at least a month's worth of extra feed on hand so that we don't draw unwanted attention to our flocks."
To illustrate how easily cockfighting can spread deadly diseases, one need only remember events in the southwestern United States in 2003. In just a few months, an outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease devastated the poultry industry throughout southern California and other parts of the southwest, costing U.S. taxpayers and the poultry industry $200 million. According to the state veterinarian and the director of Animal Health and Food Services in California, the transport of fighting cocks distributed the disease throughout the region.
In response to the outbreak, the National Chicken Council, the trade organization representing the U.S. poultry industry, issued a warning that "the nationwide traffic in game birds creates a continuing hazard for the dissemination of animal diseases."
In August 2005, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture Food and Drug Safety administrator told a gathering of federal and state officials that current U.S. Postal Service regulations "are inadequate and present great potential for contamination of the poultry industry." He estimates that each year thousands of fighting cocks and other birds lacking health certificates enter North Carolina, potentially placing the state's massive poultry industry at risk.
Enforcement is Key
Even with the media widely reporting the bird flu threat, some still haven't gotten the message. In May 2006, two men were arrested as they tried to smuggle eight gamecocks into the country from Mexico.
"Chickens find transport a fearful, stressful, injurious and even fatal procedure," one group of scientific researchers from the University of Bristol concluded. This high level of stress has been shown to make birds—whether raised for fighting, food, or any other use—more susceptible to spreading disease. The legal and illegal international trade in fighting cocks makes the blood sport no safe bet, and now, the stakes may be higher than anyone imagined.
Strict enforcement of existing laws against cockfighting could go a long way towards controlling the spread of poultry diseases, including avian influenza. In some states, however, the penalties are not strong enough to deter this crime. Cockfighting should be illegal and a felony in all 50 states—for the birds' sake and for our own.
See the Video
Florida Cockfighting Raid
Louisiana Cockfighting
Napa County Cockfighting Bust
Related Links
Cockfighting Fact Sheet
