.......The Humane Society of the United States estimates 40,000 people across the country are involved with breeding roosters for fighting, orchestrating fights or betting on birds.........
The Estimate Of People Across The Country Who Are Involved In Breeding Roosters NOT For Fighting, Orchestrating Fights Or Betting On Birds Should Be 4,000,000
Officers raid suspected cock-fighting operation
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
MARTINEZ - Aided by bright floodlights from a Contra Costa Sheriff's helicopter, county animal service officers and Sheriff's deputies raided a suspected cock-fighting operation Friday night at a riding stable on Franklin Canyon Road.
Several hundred fighting cocks were found in cages behind a barn on the property. Cock-fighting paraphernalia and antibiotics were also found hidden in a nearby stall in a barn.
A large plywood board full of nails was found on the ground just inside the gate to the pen holding the fighting cocks. An animal control officer said this was a booby trap.
A first conviction for cock-fighting or possession of a rooster for the purposes of fighting is punishable by up to a year in County Jail and/or $5,000 in fines.
A second or subsequent conviction is punishable by up to a year in County Jail and/or $25,000 in fines.
In cock-fighting, long razor sharp blades are attached to the legs of roosters that are bred to fight. The naturally aggressive birds are released in an arena and fight to the death.
Possession of roosters for cockfighting is illegal in all states except Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
The Humane Society of the United States estimates 40,000 people across the country are involved with breeding roosters for fighting, orchestrating fights or betting on birds.
Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8291310.htm
New York.......
...... Police seized 150 chickens yesterday......
Do You Think That Will Be 150 DEAD Chickens Tomorrow?
Police help chickens flee the
coop
By Heather Yakin
Times
Herald-Record
hyakin@th-record.com
Swan Lake – A chicken coop
set back from an unlined country road hid a cruel secret, police say:
cockfights.
Police seized 150 chickens yesterday from 510
Old White Lake Turnpike in Swan Lake, where people were apparently training
roosters to fight.
"There were dead chickens, and a
cockfighting ring in the shed," said state police Lt. Kevin
Costello.
Senior Investigator Thomas Scileppi said there
was blood splashed on the walls around the fighting ring. Police also found a
scale and a stick used in cockfighting.
The property
owners, Isaac "Pete" Sanchez, 42, and Sherley Stuva, 26, were each charged
yesterday with prohibited animal fighting, a felony under state Agriculture and
Markets law.
The pair, accompanied by their lawyer, turned
themselves in yesterday afternoon to state police in Liberty. They were
arraigned and sent to Sullivan County Jail, each in lieu of $2,500 bail, pending
Bethel Town Court appearances.
The investigation began
Thursday with a cruelty complaint to the Sullivan County SPCA, Costello said. An
SPCA worker went to the premises to check it out. The worker saw enough for
police to get a search warrant.
Yesterday morning, state
police executed that search warrant, and workers from the SPCA loaded the
roosters onto a truck. They also seized three goats, a pig and some ducks from
the premises.
According to the Humane Society of the United
States, cockfights generally end with the death of one or both roosters
involved. The gamecocks are often fitted with metal spurs or gaffs up to 3
inches long.
Roosters that survive often suffer punctured
lungs, broken bones and pierced eyes. Cockfighting is illegal in 48
states.
It's illegal in New York to possess fighting birds
or to watch cockfights.
Costello called this case "a unique
situation," saying he couldn't recall any recent cockfighting busts in the
area.
By late yesterday afternoon, most – but not all – of
the animals were gone. The property is a white double-wide mobile home set back
about 100 yards from the road, with a large chicken coop next to it and a
tin-roofed shed in a field at the rear.
A man who lives
nearby said Sanchez and Stuva mostly kept to themselves. The man said the noise
from the animals had caused his wife some concern, but they hadn't called
police.
Yesterday, chicken feathers and debris were
scattered near the house and coop. Many feathers had drifted onto a neighboring
property.
Roosters that hadn't yet been moved crowed
incessantly from inside the open-sided coop.
Source: http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/03/27/hychicke.htm
The Heather Channel
HERALD-LEADER STAFF
WRITER
One night, when Shane Dax Taylor was still in film school at Murray State University, he found himself following a handwritten map out to the country to see a cockfight.
As they followed the country route, Taylor and the others thought: "It can't be out here." But then they spied the tobacco barn and hundreds of cars.
"We walked up," Taylor said, "and there was this sign that said: 'No smoking, no drinking, no gambling, no fighting -- except by the roosters.'"
Just then, the barn door opened, cigarette smoke poured out, revealing a beer-toting sheriff.
Once inside, he was amazed.
"I have worked for ESPN and covered some of the biggest sporting events in the world and, visually, I still have never seen anything like that," he said. "It had nothing to do with the actual fighting -- it was just the people and the excitement level and the gambling and everything that goes on with that."
So a few years later when he came across Frank Manley's book, The Cockfighter, he and friend Mark Boone Jr. adapted it.
What resulted was The Grey, a Kentucky-produced film that has its Lexington premiere this weekend at The Kentucky Theatre.
The movie tells the story of Sonny (John Quertermous), 12, who is introduced into the world of cockfighting by his abusive father (played by co-writer Boone, who was the motel manager in Memento).
The cast, which mixes Hollywood actors with Murray natives, also features Pearl Harbor's Catherine Kellner as Sonny's mom.
The Grey has earned kudos from the likes of Variety and Film Threat; it's traveled the festival circuit and won best American film and a directing award at the 2003 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Taylor, who was born in Henderson and moved to Louisville at 13, shot the film in Murray. The director says he didn't place any sort of judgment on the people in the cockfighting world.
"That's what they do," Taylor said. "There's a national championship cockfight, and the winner gets $500,000, so that's big business."
Taylor says that to escape the wrath of PETA, they played it safe with the cockfighting scenes. They were done with trick photography and props that resemble teeny-tiny rubber boxing gloves.
If you were wondering, the film's title refers to the type of bird that Sonny fights.
The Grey, which plays through next week, will have three screenings tonight, at 5:40, 7:40 and 9:40. Taylor will be available for a Q&A after the last two screenings.
Cheers to WKYT, Karyn Czar
Congratulations to WKYT-TV and Clear Channel radio's Karyn Czar: They both won regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.
WKYT (Channel 27) scooped up awards in an impressive four categories: overall excellence, continuing coverage and spot news coverage (both for "Ice Storm 2003"), and newscast ("Falling Ice").
Czar is news director for Lexington's Clear Channel radio stations, which include news-talk station WLAP-630 AM. She won in the "use of sound" category for a montage piece on memorial services held throughout Central Kentucky after the Columbia space shuttle tragedy.
The Murrow award, given by the Radio-Television News Directors Association, honors outstanding achievements in electronic journalism.
The 'Eden' switcheroo
Source: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/8270468.htm