Busts of Animal Fights Surging as We Work
to Fortify Federal Law Even Further

Congress must hear from us to understand the urgency of the border crisis with animal fighting

Dear friend,

Local law enforcement agents are taking more determined action against animal fighting than ever, and they are preventing an enormous amount of cruelty when they shut down these animal cruelty networks.

In July, in Granville County, N.C., the county sheriff and other cooperating agencies arrested 15 people—none of them from the locale but instead coming from Georgia, Nebraska, Virginia, and even Cuba—and seized more than 100 birds who would have soon landed in fighting pits. Several of the cockfighting participants were not legally in the country, and it triggered action from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Homeland Security.

A photo from the crime scene included a trailer featuring the logo of Los Panchos Gamecock Farm in Traphill, N.C. Los Panchos Gamecock Farm has been the subject of an ongoing investigation by Animal Wellness Action. The owner of that farm may be one of the largest gamecock operators in the state, underscoring that the tentacles of these fighting operations reach far and wide, including internationally.

Just days before the North Carolina bust, deputies seized 32 roosters in eastern Colorado. The Adams County Sheriff's Office shared several photos from the seizure that show the location where the fighting allegedly took place. Suspect Jesus Orozco is suspected of administering the animal fights, and tentative charges against him include committing aggravated cruelty to animals.

In Santa Cruz County, Calif., 200 birds and 10 firearms were seized in a raid, along with boxes of knives to be affixed to the birds’ legs. With every bust, law enforcement knocks a brick or two out of the animal fighting superstructure in the United States.

And with our effort to pass the FIGHT Act, we are working to give law enforcement even more tools to crack down on dogfighters and cockfighters.

Animal fighting is a morally settled issue in our nation. Dogs placed in a pit, succumbing to blood loss or perhaps suffocation when his opponent has him by the throat and won’t let go. Birds wounded by knives and curved ice picks affixed to the animals’ legs. The weapons pierce the skin and cut in a blur. Gouged eyes, punctured hearts or lungs. Slashing wounds that open up arteries.

Make no mistake, these are terrible ways to die. Traumatic. Painful. Animals terror-stricken. And for what? For the thrill of the bloodletting and the illegal gambling that motivates the core animal-cruelty crime.

It’s perhaps the most despicable and malevolent form of animal cruelty in our nation. And that’s saying something.

And with our effort to pass the FIGHT Act, we are working to give law enforcement even more tools to crack down on dogfighters and cockfighters.

People Die at Animal Fighting Derbies, Too

It turns out that non-human animals are not the only victims. Earlier this year, at a cockfight in Mexico, six people were killed and 14 wounded when cartel-on-cartel violence broke out at the spectacle of cruelty. One of the dead was a 16-year-old boy from Washington state, killed in a hail of bullets fired from automatic weapons. His father was shot and injured.

The reality is, Americans are the major suppliers of fighting animals to the cartel-controlled cockfighting pits throughout Mexico. This is an illicit trade every bit as ugly and violent as the drug trade, and these two forms of trafficking are bound together.

U.S.-based cockfighters breed fighting birds by the hundreds of thousands, and the cartels run through the animals in orgies of animal violence at cockfighting pits with stadium seating. They enjoy the bloodletting and the gambling, deadening their hearts even more to the suffering of others.

Prior to that latest mass shooting, there were 20 people killed in a separate massacre at a cockfight, and an American from Chicago was one of the victims.

And shootings occur on our side of the border as well. A referee shot at a cockfight in Miami. A spectator shot at a cockfight in Dallas. A mass shooting at a cockfight outside of Honolulu, with two dead and three wounded.

And dogfighting may be even worse.

In Mississippi, last November, two men were shot and killed execution style.

We have multiple problems at the Southern border, and one of those problems is the trafficking of fighting animals back and forth. This trafficking comes with cruelty, chaos, and crime, and it spills over into our communities.

The people conducting these crimes are a menace to our society. But while we are making unmistakable progress, there’s so much more to be done. Animal fighting won’t stop unless we get off of the sidelines and get involved in reporting the crimes, passing the FIGHT Act, and creating a culture of zero tolerance for these staged spectacles.

We’ve long known that good laws are not enough. We need more enforcement of the law. We have a rewards program that offers cash to tipsters who alert us or law enforcement to these intentional crimes against animals. They can email us here.

There Are Major Gaps in Enforcement; Organized Criminals Continue to Operate

There are vast stretches of the United States without any meaningful enforcement and where the animal fighters operate with impunity. To our great dismay, for instance, the federal government has conducted no enforcement actions against animal fighting in Oklahoma, Guam, or Puerto Rico, even though we know where the animal fighters operate. In fact, at the end of 2023, we called out Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt for issuing a video tribute to the cockfighters in the Sooner State.

It's spotty enforcement of anti-animal-fighting laws at the federal level that we’ve identified as a core problem. And that’s also why we are working to pass the FIGHT Act to give law enforcement more tools to bring down the dogfighters and cockfighters. We are so grateful to Senators Cory Booker, D-N.J., and John Kennedy, R-La., and Representatives Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., for leading this fight in Congress.

We now have 650 agencies, associations, and organizations backing the FIGHT Act (H.R. 2742/S. 1529), and passing that bill is an urgent priority for us. Also last month, the National Sheriffs’ Association endorsed the FIGHT Act, joining the National District Attorneys Association in calling on Congress to pass this critical legislation. These two agencies represent more than 5,000 elected law enforcement officers covering every county in the United States.

There are a number of provisions in the FIGHT Act, but one of the most important is to create a private right of action against animal fighters. If the measure passes, citizens can sue dogfighters and cockfighters in civil court if law enforcement doesn’t act on credible information about illegal fighting activities.

The FIGHT Act also bans gambling on online dogfights and cockfights, which is a $12-billion-plus enterprise in the Philippines alone. And it allows for the forfeiture of property and other assets used in the commission of an animal-fighting crime. That kind of penalty—losing a house or a truck—will be felt by any animal fighter.

It was a major moment when we passed a law in Congress in 2018 to ban animal fighting everywhere in the United States. But now we are locked onto the task of enforcement and shutting down the pits, the gamecock farms, the pit bull yards, and all of the other features of the organized crimes of dogfighting and cockfighting.

I hope you’ll write your federal lawmakers in support of the FIGHT Act.

Contact your federal lawmakers and urge them to cosponsor the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act!

And I also hope you’ll donate today to support our Animal Fighting Is the Pits campaign. If we cannot stop these forms of despicable and illegal cruelty, how can we address other structural problems such as factory farming, animal testing, the fur trade, and others?

For the animals,

Wayne Pacelle President Animal Wellness Action