SANTA FE - The room is
reserved, and they got the big one: the floor of the Senate.
The players are ready and rarin' to go:
animal-rights advocates and cockfighting boosters are massing in the Roundhouse
for today's hearing of two bills that, if passed, would ban the age-old practice
in New Mexico.
Just one problem.
Eager anticipation for today's hearing on
cockfighting is hard to find among lawmakers.
"I'm not excited," said Senate Majority Whip Mary
Jane Garcia, a Las Cruces Democrat who is sponsoring, for the second time, a
bill to ban cockfighting.
Her first try came in 1989, her first year as a
lawmaker.
"I know it's coming, and my colleagues will try to
bash me again," Garcia said. "It's going to be uphill."
And so, the journey continues into 2005.
Every year or so for as long as most folks can
remember, anguished animal-rights advocates and determined lawmakers have set
their jaws and marched on Santa Fe, hoping this would be the year they make
history in New Mexico by banning cockfighting.
The state is now one of only two - Louisiana is the
other - that still allows people to stage fights between armed roosters.
Danielle Bays is stalking the Roundhouse even now,
with a pair of rooster boxing gloves dangling from her purse. The yellow-leather
gloves are used to test roosters out before they are armed with steel knives for
the real fight.
Bays, the campaign director for Animal Protection
Voters of New Mexico, tells everyone she meets that according to the Chinese
calendar - and her own gut feeling - this is the Year of the Rooster.
"There's so much momentum this year," Bays said.
With momentum, come crowds. Today's hearing is
expected to draw a good one.
The ringleader of the circus will be Sen. Carlos
Cisneros, the Questa Democrat who heads the Senate Conservation Committee.
"It is contentious. It is emotional," Cisneros said
of the debate he will moderate. "It could get out of hand, but I don't expect it
to."
Hearing attendees, who by now have this routine down
pat, will be among the few in the Capitol today with an appetite to talk about
battling birds.
Even Gov. Bill Richardson has brushed off questions
about the perennial debate, saying that with education, health care, tax policy
and even election reform, New Mexico has better things to debate.
"Counties in New Mexico currently have the option of
banning local cockfights and many have," said Billy Sparks, a spokesman for the
governor. "The statewide ban has failed to get through the Legislature."
But Sparks added Richardson's office would follow
this year's progress.
"The governor's final decision on the legislation
will be based on what actually reaches his desk," Sparks said.
Even Garcia acknowledges she is unsure of her
ability to clear today's committee.
"I think some of my colleagues in the rural areas
will find it difficult to support," Garcia said. "I'm going to give it my best
shot."
As the day of the cockfighting hearing approached,
many in the Capitol dreaded the topic that tends to suck all the oxygen out of
the building.
Sen. William Sharer, a Farmington Republican, has a
bill up for hearing today that, on any other day, would be the attention-getter.
His measure, to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples only, would typically
draw crowds.
Sharer noted with dismay that for one day at least,
interest in his bill could get eclipsed.
Although Cisneros knows full well he's going to have
a loud crowd on his hands, he said he takes the long view and welcomes the
debate.
"That is democracy at work," Cisneros said. "This is
what we're all about."
Rep. Greg Payne, an Albuquerque Republican, shakes
his head at it all. About 25 years ago, he said, he was serving as a legislative
page, and the issue of the day was a bill to ban cockfighting.
"It was one of the most controversial, most
talked-about issues," Payne said.
Now, it's back.
"I know New Mexico has a reputation as the land of
mañana but sometimes I feel like the Roundhouse is the epicenter of
that," Payne said
Cockfighting in the Year of the
Rooster
Bird Battling and Nonviolent Tales of Chicken
Fortitude
By BUCK WOLF
ABC News
Feb. 15, 2005 — When I heard that a cockfighting enthusiast was
calling for chickens to be outfitted with miniature boxing gloves, I had to
check the calendar. Indeed, last Wednesday marked the start of the Chinese new
year — and it's the Year of the Rooster.
The Chinese are celebrating the start of the year 4702. Of course, to many
people, cockfighting is something more appropriate for 4702 B.C. Oklahoma state
Sen. Frank Shurden, however, sees it differently.
The Democratic lawmaker has been a longtime defender of the gamecock
industry, once a multimillion-dollar business in Oklahoma. It was outlawed in
2002, as it is now in 48 states. In every state except Louisiana and New Mexico,
arming roosters with razor-like spurs is a cock-a-doodle don't.
But a California company, Gamecock Boxing Inc., has designed boxing gloves
and chicken-sized protective gear to take the blood out of this sport.
Electronic sensors in the chickens' vests would allow these feathered gladiators
to score points, instead of tearing out each other's McNuggets.
"Who's going to object to chickens fighting like humans do? Everybody wins,"
said Shurden. He asked Oklahoma lawmakers in late January to restore a nonlethal
form of cockfighting, comparing it to horse racing and promising it to be a boon
to gambling and tourism.
"Let the roosters do what they love to do without getting injured," he said.
The Legislature will take up Shurden's gamecock bill later this month.
I had barely considered the modern practice of cockfighting, and yet the same
week Shurden introduced his bill, I found that 17,000 cockfighting fans piled
into an arena in the Manila, Philippines, for the World Slasher Cup, a three-day
Super Bowl of beak-breaking action.
Some 260 featherweight champions — boasting names like "Johnny Jumper" and
"Foe Fire Fly" — face each other in one-on-one battles, armed with steel talons,
with wagers of more than $50,000 often riding on each match.
You would think that Bangkok would be the capital of chicken fighting. But
the Philippines rules the roost.
"This is where you see the spirit of sportsmanship," Rodolfo Albano, a former
Filipino congressman and owner of some 300 gamecocks, told Reuters news service.
"No one cheats because, if they do, they will be attacked by the crowd."
Man arrested for cruelty to animals in his
basement
Published in the Asbury Park Press 02/22/05
By A. SCOTT
FERGUSON
STAFF WRITER
ASBURY PARK -- Authorities have confiscated 26 chickens and
roosters, and three bearded dragon lizards from a First Avenue home, and the
owner of the creatures now faces a number of animal cruelty charges.
Police originally were called to the home after a report of an
aggravated assault last week and then found the animals packed into the cellar,
Victor Amato, chief of the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, said Monday.
The owner, Raymond Lopez, 45, may now face up to 28 charges of
animal cruelty, when the investigation is complete, Amato said.
Most of the roosters and chickens appear to have come from a
farm in Howell, where authorities last year found about 1,400 roosters that were
bred to fight, in addition to what appeared to be a cockfighting ring.
In the Howell case, Lopez was charged with keeping and
maintaining animals for fighting. Amato found the roosters and chickens living
in the basement, with some placed in fish tanks emptied of water, during an
investigation from Thursday into Friday.Amato added that the conditions were
inappropriate and unsanitary.
After authorities found the birds, Lopez agreed to sign over
ownership to the SPCA. The Associated Humane Societies, Tinton Falls, assisted
with the removal of the animals to a farm in Colts Neck.
Source: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050222/NEWS01/502220352/1004/NEWS01
