Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Leaders and scientists with Animal Wellness Action, Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), and the Center for a Humane Economy called out cockfighting as a “runaway crime” and a “viral superspreader” in Kentucky and said that it poses a direct and documented threat to the state’s $1.7 billion poultry industry.

The group’s scientists said that rampant cockfighting and trafficking of fighting birds could spread H5N1 to a number of the state’s 1,000 or so commercial broiler bird and laying-hen farms.

The groups charged that egg prices have risen by about $2 a dozen since the H5N1 outbreak, driven by USDA’s overuse of mass depopulation of commercial poultry, and that’s cost consumers $15 billion in additional outlays for eggs alone. Turkey prices have also surged since the zoonotic disease epidemic.

The animal wellness groups applauded the Kentucky State Police for a Jan. 4 bust of a cockfight that resulted in the arrests of 54 people in Casey County, while adding that they know of other pits that continue to operate with impunity. Acting on an animal cruelty complaint, troopers visited the location on Riffe Creek Road and found an active fighting event. The arrested individuals were charged with second-degree animal cruelty.

“Cockfighting is not a petty offense, but a form of organized crime that threatens not only to spread cruelty but also an avian disease that could create chaos for the state’s multi-billion-dollar poultry industry,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “H5N1 is also driving higher prices for consumers, collectively costing them $15 billion in higher egg prices alone during the last three years, and cockfighting could extend the reach and virulence of the disease.”

Pacelle called on state lawmakers to pass a measure introduced by State Sen. Greg Elkins, R-Winchester, that would make cockfighting a felony. Kentucky is one of a half dozen or so states that treat cockfighting as a misdemeanor.  That legislation is designated Senate Bill 39.