Cockfighting: Alive And Quiet In The Backwoods

IT'S A BLOODY SPORT that was widely banned in Europe in the 19th century, but it's still common across Latin America. Cockfighting is also illegal in most of the United States, but it hasn't been stamped out, particularly in the backwoods.

OZARK, Mo. - Despite years of effort by animal-rights activists, cockfighting in a few states remains robust, secretive - and perfectly legal.

That's exactly how Phil Church of Ozark, a third-generation cocker, would like to keep it.

Sitting in his paneled office - a framed view of his Chrysler dealership on one wall, an aerial view of his gamecock-breeding operation on another - the 75-year-old Church describes cockfighting as both a legitimate sport and hobby, as well as a semisecretive fraternity.

"We don't want publicity. We don't want any problems," says Church, who remembers as a boy in West Virginia riding on horseback with his father to a cockfight. "What we really want, and this is a hillbilly attitude, is to be left alone."

Church, the director of the Missouri chapter of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association, nods toward the door of his auto dealership. "I know how many people come in that door and look at a car and what percentage of them will buy," he says.

"In cockfighting, I know about 98 percent are against, and I can't convince 98 percent of the people."

The anti-cockfighting lobby will spend a lot of energy this year trying to persuade Missourians to ban the practice, which is also legal in Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Cockfighting was legal in Kentucky until Dec. 16, when the state appeals court ruled it illegal, based on a legislative bookkeeping matter.

Church said about five pits are operated in Missouri, mostly at the end of dead-end, dirt roads. Participants pay a fee to enter a derby, and several fights are conducted in tournament fashion, with prize money awarded to the owner of the winning rooster. He didn't say it, but there's usually informal betting on the side.

Cocks are equipped with pointed metal spurs on their feet. When released by their owners, they attack each other in a flurry of brilliant plumage until one is "unable to continue" - either from wounds or death.

About one out of four of the birds in a tournament is killed, Church says.

A fight with spurs takes from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Fights without spurs generally last 90 minutes, he says.

The birds fight a maximum of three times a season, which runs from January to July, and are retired for breeding at age 3.

Fighting is purely instinctual; the birds would rather scrap than eat or mate, Church says. And unlike their supermarket-bound cousins, they often live to be many years old, eat better and get to walk around outside on natural grass, he says.

"He's living by the grace of the fact that he's a gamecock, really. Any other kind of rooster and he'd be dead," Church says.

But that argument doesn't wash with animal advocates.

"It is such a violent, vicious, horrible activity that I really couldn't tell you why somebody would be attracted to that," says Teresa Gibbs, a cruelty case worker for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Washington, D.C.

"Inevitably one of the animals dies. The survivors are usually horribly maimed," Gibbs says, adding that cockfights are generally places where prostitution, gambling and drugs flourish.

Church says that perception is a "propaganda ploy by the humane society." In Missouri, the association's state chapter keeps tight control over the pits, which means discretion, cooperation of county officials, small purses and no liquor, he says.

The Missouri Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutionally vague a cockfighting ban in 1985. Since then, efforts to bar the practice have failed, thanks to a strong cockfighting lobby, animal advocates say.

Last year, an animal-abuse bill might have made cockfighting illegal, but a provision was added defining "animal" as "mammal." The bill did make animal abuse a felony crime in some cases, but not cockfighting.

Shirley Sostman, a vice president for the lobbying group Alliance for Animal Legislation of Missouri Inc., says this year the emphasis will be on cockfighting.

In the Missouri Legislature, Rep. Pat Dougherty, a Democrat from St. Louis who has sponsored anti-cockfighting bills in previous years, filed a similar bill in December.

"I think I'm more optimistic this year because the amount of interest is growing in trying to eliminate this blood sport," Dougherty says.

But Church has reserved optimism, too.

"The rural sections of Missouri are not anti-cockfighting, and I feel like it's the urban areas and the urban politicians that are against us," he says. "I think we have the numbers to probably stop it. I think it's a touch-and-go situation. It's close."

Besides, a ban wouldn't stop cockfighting, Church says. While it's legal in only a few states, there are cockfighting pits in almost every one, he says.

Anti-cockers say a key element to their campaign will be letting people know cockfighting is legal in some states.

"That's where we have dropped the ball," says Wendell Maddox, the regional director of the Humane Society of the United States.

Church says most cockers in Missouri want to keep it as it is - quiet, small and gentlemanly.

"All we ask for, really, is tell me who in the hell we're hurting and just kindly leave us alone," he said.