Day: March 11, 2003

The Oklahoma state Senate is working on a bill that would reduce the penalties for cockfighting under a ban that was approved by voters last November.

The proposed change would reduce cockfighting from a felony to a misdemeanor. The bill was put forth by state Sen. Frank Shurden after another bill of his that would have legalized cockfighting in those counties that voted against the ban was headed to failure.

Shurden told Oklahoma’s KOCO Channel 5, “It is wrong to make felons out of people for raising chickens.”

The penalty for participating in a cockfight under Shurden’s bill would be reduced to a $500 fine and up to a year in jail. Attending a cockfighting would carry a maximum penalty of a $200 fine.

Source:

Measure would ease cockfighting penalties. ChannelOklahoma.Com, February 20, 2003.

With Oklahoma’s recent outlawing of cockfighting, there are only two places in the United States where cockfighting is legal — Louisiana and New Mexico. Although an effort to ban cockfighting in New Mexico failed in the state Senate in February, it is moving forward in the state House.

The proposed law would make sponsoring, arranging, holding or participating in a cockfight a fourth-degree felony. Cockfighting is already illegal in 13 New Mexico counties and 28 municipalities according to a Reuters report on the proposed ban.

But the sport is apparently popular in rural parts of the state. Ronald Barron, president of the New Mexico Game Birds Association which claims 7,000 members, cockfighting generates more than $51 million a year in revenues to the state, including an active export industry that sends game birds to the Philippines.

Despite that, Animal Protection Voters of New Mexico — which supports the ban — was touting a poll that it says shows more than 80 percent of New Mexico voters favor a ban on cockfighting. Danielle Bay of the Animal Protection Voters of New Mexico told Reuters, “Forty-eight other states in this country have banned cockfighting, most of them over 100 years ago. New Mexico’s time has come.”

With the New Mexico legislature set to adjourn on March 22 and the state Senate already having passed on the measure, however, it doesn’t seem likely that an end to cockfighting will be forthcoming soon in New Mexico.

Source:

New Mexico considers cockfighting ban. Zelie Pollon, Reuters, February 15, 2003.