Dear John,
It’s hard to believe that any legislative body — in any country in the world — would treat a proposal to make it easier to engage in dogfighting or cockfighting. But that’s exactly what’s happening in the Oklahoma Legislature.
One bill, HB 1792, would reduce the penalties for dogfighting to a maximum fine of $500! That’s an embarrassing and outrageous gutting of the penalties for the horror of staged dogfights.
A second bill, HB 2530, would allow Oklahoma counties to opt out of the state’s voter-approved anti-cockfighting law. They would create cockfighting refuges in the Sooner State if they get their way!
But the lawmakers backing these polls are way out of line with the values of voters, according to a new Sooner Survey. That poll shows that 87 percent of Oklahomans want cockfighting banned and they also want the penalties kept strong. The electorate there finds the entire idea of either dogfighting or cockfighting appalling.
Indeed, how could any lawmaker anywhere think it’s okay in the 21st century to allow staged fighting between animals?
We’ll do our best to make sure these bills don’t advance any further.
New Federal Legislation — the FIGHT Act — to be Introduced
And we are doing a lot more than fighting off bad actors. We are going on the offense.
We are poised to introduce a major rewrite of our federal law against animal fighting, enhancing capacity for federal law enforcement and even private citizens to take action against dogfighters and cockfighters.
Here’s what our new measure will do:
- establish a national ban on gambling on animal fighting
- ban shipping adult fighting animals through the U.S. mail
- allow private citizens to initiate civil actions against animal fighters when law enforcement doesn’t act on reliable information.
Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte issued a ban on online betting at cockfights months ago after dozens of people involved in cockfights were kidnapped and never heard from again! One woman, who had unpaid gambling debts, reportedly sold her child to pay off her bets! These sites are available to U.S. gamblers, and while it is impossible to track the scale, it’s clear such online gambling on cockfighting is surging in the United States.
Cockfighting and dogfighting are both barbaric in the extreme, but cockfighting has an additional feature that makes it even more virulent. Cockfighting and the trafficking of fighting animals threatens to spread avian influenza and other diseases.
The United States is already experiencing a dangerous and enormously costly outbreak of avian influenza. Cockfighting could extend the duration and geography of the outbreak, even making the virus more lethal and more transmissible to humans.
We’ll stop dogfighting and cockfighting only when we can nab the kingpins, shut down the pits, seize the live contraband, and penalize the whole cast of characters involved.
The introduction of the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking Act offers the prospect of doing just that.
I hope you’ll write to your federal lawmakers in support of the FIGHT Act.
And I hope you’ll donate to our “Animal Fighting is the Pits” campaign today. It’s a fight we cannot afford to lose.
For the animals,
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Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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