Gathering Place
Wayne Pacelle
Film glosses over
cruelty of cockfight
aficionadosFor the past several months, Hawaii filmmaker Stephanie Castillo has been peddling her marathon, eight-hour cockfight movie to state gamefowl afficionados and to mainland cockers. In media interviews ("Capturing the Truth," Star-Bulletin, June 22) and in the video, she portrays the vicious blood sport as a warm and fuzzy American cultural tradition beloved by the Founding Fathers, unfairly maligned by humane activists and widely misunderstood by the public.
The Star-Bulletin carried another profile of Castillo on Sept. 2. While the story made a commendable attempt at balance, Castillo's careful obfuscation of the facts left readers with only a partial view of what rooster fighting is all about.
Many of the interviewees in the film are little more than common criminals who practice their hobby in the 48 states where cockfighting is illegal. Their ramblings are interspersed with brief glimpses of actual fight footage in which birds engage in bloodless skirmishes with much wing-flapping but no gore. The video omits the reality of knife fights between roosters with blades strapped to their heel spurs: blood-spattered spectacles where throats are slashed, lungs punctured and eyes gouged out until one or both birds are dead or close to it.
"I didn't want to focus on the cockfights because the breeders were telling me that's such a small part," Castillo says, insisting bloodlines, pedigree and history are what the "sport" is really all about. Right. And boxer Mike Tyson's goal is to develop rippling muscles to look buff and to sharpen his footwork for the dance floor, rather than to pound his opponents into submission. These birds are bred and used for fighting, and claims that they are raised for the show circuit are a thinly disguised masquerade.
Like all cockfighting advocates, Castillo justifies it by pointing out that roosters battle naturally to establish a "pecking order." So do others in the animal world, particularly during the mating season, but once dominance is established, the contest ends. The winner struts and preens and gets his choice of females: the loser skulks off to live another day, usually with little more than his pride bruised.
But gamecocks -- like Spanish fighting bulls -- are bred to maximize their combat skills. Before bouts, the birds are pumped full of drugs to heighten aggression, increase energy, clot blood and fight fatigue. Little is "natural" about juicing up cocks before a fight, or about the 3-inch, razor-sharp, cobalt steel gaffs that are strapped to their legs to maximize pain and wounds. You won't see any of this in Castillo's carefully sanitized film.
Cockfighting in the United States was first prohibited in 1836 in Massachusetts, and by the end of World War II it survived in only nine states. Subsequently, when voters have had the chance to decide the fate of cockfighting -- most recently in plebiscites in Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma -- they have outlawed it in resounding fashion.
Castillo claims that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were avid cockers, and that "Honest Abe" Lincoln was so named for his impartiality in refereeing cock fights. Historians say these claims are false or greatly exaggerated. Only Andrew Jackson fought roosters and he was criticized by his contemporaries. Even if our Founding Fathers owned gamecocks, how is that germane today? Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but no one is suggesting that pernicious practice be revived because a key historical figure embraced it 200 years ago.
Today, cockfighting is a criminal activity everywhere but in parts of New Mexico and Louisiana. Last May, a new federal law made the sale of birds or dogs for organized combat punishable by up to one year in prison and a $15,000 fine. Hawaii's congressional delegation should support pending federal legislation to double that prison time to a two-year felony and the state should follow suit by raising cockfighting from a misdemeanor to a felony crime. Cockfighting isn't traditional American culture. It's simple, old-fashioned animal abuse and the vast majority of Hawaii residents see it precisely that way.
Wayne Pacelle is a senior vice-president of the Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal welfare organization (www.hsus.org).
