Legalized cockfighting’s days could be numbered

The days of legalized cockfighting in Louisiana are looking dicey.

The controversial sport, in which male chickens (cocks, or roosters) are outfitted with razors and attack each other until one is killed or badly wounded, could be banned at the next session of the Louisiana Legislature, which convenes April 30.

Spectators usually bet on which rooster will survive.

Three bills, one in the Senate and two in the House, outlawing the sport have been filed with the Legislature.

Although bills prohibiting cockfighting statewide have been proposed numerous times in past years, all of them have failed to pass.

However, additional heat is being directed at the Legislature this year because New Mexico, which had been the only other state in the U.S. to permit cockfighting, will ban the sport starting June 15.

The occurrence of cockfighting in the Tri-parish area has been highly infrequent, according to parish officials.

“I believe that cockfighting is more associated with northern and western Louisiana,” said Larry Weidel, public information officer with the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, “but they’ve raised chickens for fighting in Lafourche.”

“I talked to older officers, and they can’t remember any arrests made associated with cockfighting,” he said.

Waddell mentioned a recent incident in Lafourche Parish in which officers discovered canines being prepped for dog fighting, which is illegal in the parish.

“That’s the first time in the 14 years I’ve been here that we’ve caught dogs being trained to fight,” he said.

Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said that chicken fighting is “not a sport at all in Terrebonne Parish. I’ve never seen cockfighting, or heard about it in Terrebonne.”

Blake Thibodaux, a 27-year-old Lafourche Parish resident, currently owns 100 game chickens.

Thibodaux said he has “fought chickens since 1990.” He considers cockfighting to be a pastime for him.

“Not many people fight chickens for a living anymore,” he said. “Mostly it’s a hobby for people. Some people like to watch football, or to hunt and fish. I like to fight chickens.”

Thibodaux believes the proposed laws banning cockfighting unfairly target people like him who are proud to participate in the sport, although he “knows it (cockfighting) won’t be around forever.”

“Whether it’s humane is a matter of opinion,” he said. “We slaughter millions of chickens a year (for food)-there’s nothing humane about that.”

“Personally, I don’t like football,” Thibodaux said, “but just because I don’t like football, I don’t ask for a law to ban it.”

He said that “people say (chicken fighting) is affiliated with drugs, but if you frisk people at Saints games, you’ll find drugs.”

“You can make anything look bad if you want, and discriminate against it,” he said. “People make it look bad. They talk bad about it.”

The cockfighter is resigned to the fact that the ban may become state law.

“If it’s against the law, we move on,” he said. “I won’t continue to do it when it’s against the law.”

“I’m not concerned about the bill,” he said. “If it passes, it passes. If it don’t, it don’t. (Criticizing) cockfighting will not ever stop.”

Thibodaux questioned the value of chickens compared to humans.

“These chickens like to fight,” he said. “They’re basically useless.”

“If it’s banned, what will people do with them (game cocks),” he said. “You can’t turn them loose. They’ll fight one another.”

He said, “If they outlaw cockfighting, we’ll go fishing. Putting a hook through their mouths, they’ll cry about that.”

Animal protection organizations take a much dimmer view of cockfighting.

“We’ve always felt it should be outlawed,” said Gloria Dauphin of the Louisiana SPCA in New Orleans. “It’s a very inhuman, barbaric blood sport.”

“Proponents say it’s a cultural activity, that it’s family entertainment,” she said. “Our concern is that the practice, especially the apparatuses they put on the animals, is inhumane to the animals.”

“It’s not unusual to find children in the audience (at cockfights),” she said. “It can’t help but desensitize children to violence.”

Dan Paten, a researcher with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said, “Cockfighting is a form of cruelty which hopefully will be banned in Louisiana as it is in the rest of the country.”

Parish officials concur with animal protectionists.

“I’m hoping it will be banned because it’s a barbaric activity,” Waddell said. “We have enough problems in the state without adding that to the mix.”

He said that “if a law passes overturning something legal, certainly we’ll direct ourselves to stopping it if we find it.”

Larpenter said, “If the state wants to change it, nobody would fight it. I grew up on coons and ducks. I love animals. I don’t care to fight animals.”