Louisiana joins rest of states in making cockfighting illegal

BATON ROUGE, La. — Gory and bucolic all at once, cockfights have drawn crowds to small-time pits and full-blown arenas in towns across Louisiana for generations. Soon they'll be against the law. Everywhere.

On Friday, Louisiana will become the last state to outlaw the rooster fights.

But supporters and opponents agree the blood sport won't be wiped out entirely. Like bootlegging, cockfights will continue on the sly in remote areas, and getting caught could mean fines or even prison.

"They're still going to fight for years to come," said Elizabeth Barras, who with her husband, Dale, ran a cockfighting pit in St. Martin Parish for 14 years. "They've still got cockfighting in every state. They just hide it from the law."

The fights between specially trained roosters are held in large arenas or in backyards. The birds are fitted with sharp metal blades or curved spikes on their legs, and instinctively attack each other. The match can last more than an hour, with one or both animals dead or maimed.

In banning the fights, Louisiana relented after years of pressure from the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups. Cockfighting remains legal on American soil in Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Guam and is popular in Mexico, the Philippines and other foreign countries.

High-profile defenders of cockfighting in Louisiana began softening their stance on the fights after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as they sought to improve the state's backward reputation.

Then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco — a native of Cajun country, where the fights have deep roots — signed the ban last year that closed a loophole in state law that excluded chickens from animal-cruelty laws. First-time offenders caught participating in cockfights will face maximum $1,000 fines and six-month prison terms.

Though the ban on cockfighting takes effect Friday, it has been illegal since last year to gamble on cockfights — a separate law passed last year as a precursor to the total ban. Wagering is part of cockfighting's appeal, and the threat of police raids pushed pit owners to close their businesses, said Chiris Daughdrill, who breeds fighting roosters about 50 miles north of New Orleans.

Barras said the gambling ban was why she and her husband shut the Atchafalaya Game Club, a Breaux Bridge pit seating hundreds that they ran for more than a decade.