January 21, 2021

DEAR FRIENDS,

Cockfighters in KY were planning a big fundraiser this weekend to support their abuse of animals, but SHARK was on the job and got it shut down!

This weekend, January 22-23rd, a group of cockfighters working under the name of the “Rural Animal Owners Alliance" (RAOA), planned to have a “Winter Bash,” to raise money for their efforts to overturn anti-cockfighting laws and other laws meant to protect animals from cruelty and abuse. 

When SHARK found out that they were going to have hundreds of people from a number of different states pour into a small town in KY, we knew that this would violate rules meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. We reached out to the authorities locally and statewide in KY, and to their great credit, they took immediate action; within a day the event was cancelled!



We told the authorities that there was a massive two-day event planned for this coming weekend in Greenup, KY. We provided evidence that one of the coordinators of the event expected at least 500 people to come in from a number of states, including from Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and more.  We made sure they knew that this was an incredibly risky event that is almost guaranteed to be a super-spreader event, and could cause great damage to Greenup County.

We know that cockfighters don’t care about the harm they cause animals, but that they planned this event when so many people are dying shows they care little about human suffering as well. 
 

From SHARK's undercover video from a KY cockfight

RAOA is an off-shoot of the pro-cockfighting organization called the KY Game Breeders Association. In their own words, "The new Rural Animal Owners Alliance LLC will be able to hire lawyers, lobbyists ect [sic] to help us in this war with the Animal Rights Activists.”

Everything we are trying to do is to save lives and to stop suffering. By going to “war,” against us, these people are openly stating that they want to continue to abuse and kill animals. That’s immoral and unethical. 

Shutting this event down not only saved human lives, but it helped expose how cockfighters are trying to hide behind made-up names and others to promote and protect their disgusting acts.