From A Concerned American Who Just Happens To Be A Gamefowl
Enthusiast,
Who Says.......
.........Do
what you can to stop them........
How to strike
back at PETA & HSUS
A lot of
cockers have other interests and are on hobby and sports forums. These are the
places to post messages that will reach people who need to know what the PETA
and HSUS are all about, and how they are trying to tell everybody how to live,
post on their sites, be polite, cut out the cuss words and do it, it will help
us all. Here are some postings from a WW1 Airplane forum, my post is the first
one. Don't mention Gamecocks
Good morning
forumites
PETA and the HSUS are far more of a threat to America than all of
the Arabs on earth. These groups deal in one thing "Money" and if left to
continue what they are trying to do will see that YOU, will live the way they
want you too. I have owned animals all of my life (a long one) and cannot
believe what is happening to our country. I go to the vet to get pills for my
cat and the bottle has written on it , for Grey Conley. I tried to explain to
the vet that Grey is my cat, not a child of mine.
I am sick of
animal story's on TV every night. Here in California the SPCA can come into your
home without a warrant, if they "Think an animal is being neglected" Not Know,
just "think", the cops even the FBI can not do this. I love animals but I think
what I eat is my business and damned if I want someone telling me what to eat.
These people are bad news, they care more about a rat than they do a child. Do
what you can to stop them. Vote to get rid of the elected officials who are in
their pockets, for Gods sake do something.
MUFF
2000 And Not 1 Infected With END
Fighting fowl get clean
bill of health
2,000 roosters, hens saved from death
Friday, February 28, 2003
By ROSEANN
KEEGAN
Register Staff Writer
Almost 2,000 roosters and
hens were saved from sudden death this week after state health officials
determined the flocks were free of the Exotic Newcastle disease.
The
poultry reside on a Foster Road property in Napa that was raided Feb. 22 on
cockfighting charges. Members of the state's Newcastle disease task force took
samples from any sickly birds on the property, but officials said tests came
back negative Wednesday.
If the birds had tested positive for the deadly
avian disease, they all would have been immediately euthanized.
"I think
clearly if it had been found, we would be trying to implement a program to
eliminate the virus from that property and surrounding areas," said Dave
Whitmer, Napa County Agricultural Commissioner.
For most of the birds,
however, the Newcastle clearance just postponed their imminent deaths. Officers
seized 1,546 alleged fighting roosters during the two-day raid, leaving hens and
younger males untagged. If the cocks go unclaimed, they will be euthanized, said
Doug Pace of the county sheriff's department.
According to the state
department of food and agriculture, Exotic Newcastle disease is a contagious and
fatal viral disease affecting all species of birds. It is one of the most
infectious diseases of poultry in the world, so virulent that many birds die
without showing any clinical signs. A death rate of nearly 100 percent can
occur.
The disease is lethal only to birds, not to humans, and is said to
have no public health consequences.
In 1971, a major outbreak occurred in
commercial poultry flocks in Southern California. The disease threatened not
only the California poultry industry but also the entire U.S. poultry and egg
supply. In all, 1,341 infected flocks were identified, and almost 12 million
birds were destroyed. State officials say the eradication program cost taxpayers
$56 million, severely disrupted the operations of many producers and increased
the prices of poultry and poultry products to consumers.
The disease
returned late last year, in backyard poultry in Southern California. Gov. Gray
Davis declared a state of emergency, and San Diego, Riverside, Los Angeles and
San Bernardino counties declared local emergencies because of the
outbreak.
It has now spread beyond backyard poultry to affect commercial
operations in California, into backyard poultry in Nevada and Arizona, and it's
still spreading.
"For us in California, poultry is a fairly big
business," said Whitmer, who has been regularly meeting with state officials to
prepare for a possible Newcastle outbreak in Napa County. "We produce a lot, and
ship a lot to other states in the U.S."
When the disease is detected,
Whitmer said, producers are forced to quarantine and depopulate their
flocks.
"Then you end up with a tough economic hit on the poultry
industry. They loose their markets and loose their flocks and have to rebuild.
That's huge," Whitmer said.
But with few, if any, commercial poultry
operations in Napa County, Whitmer said the need is less urgent to monitor the
presence of the disease locally.
"There are other places in the county
where we see poultry being raised, and certainly those operations will be under
consideration for this Exotic Newcastle disease issue," Whitmer said. "But
clearly we don't have a lot of commercial poultry (farms), considered one of the
highest priority locations."
Roseann Keegan can be reached at
256-2220 or rlanglois@napanews.com
Cockfight fans wage
dishonest attack
 |
THE ISSUE
The Legislature is considering a bill that
would make animal cruelty a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
|
| |
STATE legislators beholden to enthusiasts of
cockfighting are resorting to alarmist distortions as an explanation for
defeating a proposal to increase penalties for engaging in the macabre blood
sport. Claims that the bill would be unconstitutional and would criminalize
perfectly legal activities are ridiculous and are a deliberate attempt to create
fears about unrealistic consequences.
In a letter to the Star-Bulletin published on Tuesday, Rep. Blake Oshiro,
vice-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the bill
"unconstitutionally broad, vague and ultimately unenforceable." He contended
that the bill's provision making it a felony to commit acts against animals that
are "especially heinous, atrocious, cruel and unnecessarily tortuous" would make
pig hunting, roasting a pig and "even roping a calf at a rodeo" illegal.
That is absurd. Animal cruelty, including cockfighting, already
is classified as a misdemeanor. The bill would make it a felony, putting Hawaii
in step with 27 other states.
Oshiro distorted the issue by stating that the bill would make
it a felony simply to "own, train, possess or sell a gamecock or other fowl
known by nature to have a propensity to fight," failing to distinguish between
owning a rooster as a domestic pet and owning one for fighting purposes. In his
letter, Oshiro deliberately omitted the phrase following the one he quoted:
"with the intent to engage in an exhibition of fighting with another gamecock or
other fighting fowl."
Essentially, the bill would require that law-enforcement
authorities provide evidence of the rooster owner's intent to use it for
cockfighting. That is similar to other criminal laws that require the prosecutor
to prove intent. Possession of gaffs -- the razor-sharp spurs used to mutilate
competing roosters -- or steroids commonly used to make roosters more aggressive
would be examples of such evidence of intent.
The arguments made by Oshiro and other opponents of the
legislation are dishonest subterfuge to protect cockfighters and the related
large-scale gambling activity in Hawaii. Oshiro contends that House Judiciary
Chairman Eric Hamakawa recognized the unconstitutionality of the bill.
Hamakawa's explanation for killing a similar bill in last year's session of the
Legislature was slightly different and more candid: "I have a lot of
cockfighting constituents."
Source: http://starbulletin.com/2003/03/01/editorial/indexeditorials2.html
Point of View: Bill would gut cockfighting ban
2003-03-02
By
Cynthia Armstrong
SEN. Frank Shurden, the
Legislature's leading cockfighting enthusiast, has maneuvered a bill to the
Senate floor that would eviscerate the state's voter-approved cockfighting ban.
Senate Bill 835 does far more than substitute a weak misdemeanor
penalty provision for the felony-level penalties that voters adopted. SB 835
amounts to a section-by-section gutting of State Question 687, which voters
approved just a few months ago by 124,000 votes and which passed in two-thirds
of the state's state legislative districts.
SB 835 narrows the definition of cockfighting to include fights
only if birds have knives or gaffs attached to their legs. Not one of the other
47 state laws against cockfighting has such a narrow and unworkable definition.
If a lookout at a staged fight can get word to handlers in the
pit that police are about to enter the arena, cockfighters can quickly pick up
their birds and unfasten the knives or gaffs strapped to the birds' legs in
order to prevent any arrest. Even if the birds are wounded and dying, and the
cockfighters are holding blood-soaked knives, there is no crime as long as the
police don't see the metal implements on the birds' legs. No police officer or
sheriff would even attempt to enforce such a hollow law.
While SQ 687 banned possession of birds for fighting, Shurden's
bill legalizes possession of fighting birds. His bill also makes it legal to
maintain facilities for cockfighting. Shurden has narrowed the forfeiture
provision in SQ 687 to include only knives and gaffs, thereby legalizing all
other equipment used in the cockfighting industry.
In crafting SQ 687, the Oklahoma Coalition Against Cockfighting
looked to similar state laws to guide us in constructing the proposed
anti-cockfighting law. Obviously, the best model for us was the state's anti-
dogfighting law, which the Legislature overwhelmingly adopted in 1982. SQ 687 is
almost a carbon copy of the anti- dogfighting law, including its penalty
provisions. The Legislature obviously understood then what Shurden would like
them to forget now: Strong penalties are a necessary and effective deterrent to
animal fighting. Twenty years later, our prisons are not overrun with convicted
dogfighters, Oklahoma is not known for its dogfighting industry and dogfighters
are not an organized political lobby.
If SB 835 is adopted, cockfighting would be illegal in name
only. That's not what the people of Oklahoma want, and they made that clear by
resoundingly approving SQ 687 in November. Cockfighting enthusiasts should
understand better than anyone that in a fight -- in this case a ballot
initiative fight -- there are winners and losers. You cannot rewrite the rules
of the election after the outcome is determined.
Surely a majority of our state's elected officials should have
the resolve to resist the attempt to undo a statewide election, regardless of
their personal opinions about the merits of cockfighting.
Armstrong is treasurer of the Oklahoma Coalition Against
Cockfighting.
Armstrong