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Dear Friend,
In our continuing investigations of illegal animal fighting syndicates, we’ve discovered that the online retailer Etsy — a platform best known for selling handmade and vintage products to millions and a public company traded on Nasdaq — is in the cockfighting business.
Right now, Etsy is being used as a forum for unscrupulous buyers and sellers to traffic in deadly implements used in illegal animal fighting ventures: razor-sharp knives and gaffs that are often strapped to roosters’ legs before they are placed in a pit to fight to the death. These items are often marketed as “collectibles,” but that’s just a façade, a pretense. They are designed to enhance the bloodletting in staged animal fighting. Selling them is morally indefensible and, under federal law, a felony offense.
Wake up, Etsy. This is contraband peddled on your online sales platform.
Cockfighting doesn’t just constitute savage cruelty. It’s often entangled with gambling rings, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and other organized crimes. But it also poses a massive and underappreciated threat to public health and the U.S. poultry industry.
There have been 15 known introductions of virulent Newcastle disease into the United States, leading to devastating epidemics that required the mass depopulation of millions of birds. Ten of those outbreaks were traced directly to fighting birds smuggled from Mexico. These outbreaks have cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars, wiped out commercial poultry flocks, driven up meat and egg prices, and caused immense suffering.
And the risks are only growing. The ongoing epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza has already led to the depopulation of 135 million laying hens since it began, causing egg prices to soar and leading to immense suffering for the hens. As far back as 2004, the World Health Organization warned that cockfighting posed an acute threat, noting that cockfighters had contracted bird flu through close interactions with infected birds. Even the nation’s top poultry producers — including the United Egg Producers — have endorsed the FIGHT Act, legislation that would toughen and help enforce animal-fighting laws, because they know the stakes.
For Etsy to enable this commerce — all for a few dollars in transaction fees — makes no sense. There must be limits on what a “marketplace” is allowed to sell. Contraband that fuels animal cruelty, organized crime, and disease outbreaks should not be monetized.
That’s why the Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action have issued a formal demand to Etsy’s leadership. We’re calling on the company to:
1. Immediately remove all listings for cockfighting gaffs, knives, and related implements.
2. Adopt a clear corporate policy that honors and enforces federal animal welfare laws.
3. Ban the sale of distinct components of these weapons, which are currently offered separately and intended only to assemble illegal cockfighting tools.
4. Publicly endorse the FIGHT Act in Congress and send a letter of support to the appropriate members of Congress.
Etsy portrays itself as a progressive company and a champion of creativity and small business. But profiting from organized animal cruelty, disease threats, and federal crimes is incompatible with that image. It also invites enormous legal and reputational risk.
Our investigation into cockfighting paraphernalia doesn’t end with Etsy. We’ve found similar listings on eBay and uncovered sellers across the country. The deeper problem is the lack of federal enforcement — and that’s why we’re pressing Congress to pass the FIGHT Act, the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act, and the FBI Animal Cruelty Taskforce Act. This troika of bipartisan legislation would give law enforcement more tools to stop animal fighting and other malicious crimes of animal cruelty.
Please share this story widely and let others know what Etsy is enabling. Contact Etsy and demand it stop profiting from animal cruelty. Leave comments for Etsy on social media: [link removed] [[link removed]] or youtube.com/@Etsy [[link removed]] .
And let’s keep our eye on the prize of passing the FIGHT Act in Congress, not only to improve enforcement of our laws against trafficking of fighting paraphernalia, but also to shut down the trade in fighting animals that enables the bloody spectacles themselves.
The fight against animal cruelty demands accountability — from corporations, from Congress, and from all of us. Together, we can send a clear message: Etsy must get out of the cockfighting business. Today.
Our nation must have a zero-tolerance policy for staged animal fighting and all of the activities and commerce bound up with it.
For all animals,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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