Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Puerto Rico Cockfighters Go to Ring in Federal Ban Defiance
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
December 19, 2019

Share

TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico — Felipe Espinal walked into his cockfighting establishment Wednesday night in the northern town of Toa Baja and held up a white pen in triumph as he recorded the moment with his cellphone.

“We can now live in peace. I’m 65 years old. Who’s going to hire me? Nobody wants me even for cleaning floors. I couldn’t sleep wondering what was going to happen.” Tony Rojas, who takes cares of 100 gamecocks for a living
The crowd hushed as he cried out: “This is the pen that said we can keep fighting gamecocks!”
Hours earlier, Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez signed a bill authorizing cockfighting in defiance of a federal ban that goes into effect Friday. She was surrounded by Espinal and other cockfighters who cheered the decision, some even crying, relieved, if only temporarily, that the island’s 400-year-old tradition was still alive.
“We can now live in peace,” said Tony Rojas, who takes cares of 100 gamecocks for a living. “I’m 65 years old. Who’s going to hire me? Nobody wants me even for cleaning floors. I couldn’t sleep wondering what was going to happen.”
The U.S. territory of 3.2 million people has 71 cockfighting establishments in 45 municipalities licensed by the island’s Department of Sports and Recreation. Officials estimate the industry generates $18 million a year and employs some 27,000 people such as Rojas, noting that jobs range from judges to technicians who clean gamecocks and feed them papaya after fights to those who secure plastic spurs on cocks before every fight.
Photo of a dead gamecock
A dead gamecock is carried away from the ring at the Campanillas cockfighting club, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019. While cockfighters and government officials in Puerto Rico celebrated the defiance of the federal ban on cockfights, animal activists lamented the move. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

The Move Made Many Officials in Puerto Rico Bristle

Many of them feared for their livelihoods when Congress approved the 2018 Farm Bill last December. It contained the Parity in Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act that aimed to end cockfighting in U.S. territories, giving them one year to comply. The practice was already illegal in all 50 U.S. states but is still widely practiced in other U.S. jurisdictions including Puerto Rico.
The move made many officials in Puerto Rico bristle at what they viewed as another intrusion by the federal government. After all, cockfighting was legalized in 1933 by a Puerto Rico governor from Kentucky who sought to attract U.S. tourists to the island. That move ended 34 years of underground fighting that began when the U.S. government banned the practice in May 1899 after it defeated Spain and occupied Puerto Rico.
It was the Spanish conquistadors who brought cockfighting to Puerto Rico, where it cut through race and social classes, according to documents that local historian Juan Llanes filed in 2014 with the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
“Through their birds, in the arena, slaves could defeat their masters, blacks could defeat whites, Criollos could defeat Peninsulares,” he wrote.
Cockfighting grew so popular it even prompted a Roman Catholic bishop in 1750 to prohibit cockfights at certain times because church attendance had dropped, Llanes says.
“The gamecock sport in Puerto Rico is not going to disappear,” said Gerardo Mora, executive director of Puerto Rico’s Cockfighting Commission, a part of the island’s Department of Recreation and Sports.

They Feared the Federal Ban Would Sink Them Financially

Mora was among the roughly 50 people attending cockfights at Espinal’s establishment Wednesday night in Toa Baja, a town whose first cockfighting arena was founded in 1786.
Cheers filled the air every time a cock gouged its opponent’s eyes out or stepped on its head in triumph after it collapsed and died following intense battles that lasted less than two minutes. Those that died were thrown into a black plastic bag to be doused with gasoline, set on fire and later buried.
Sitting in the crowd was Yeadealeaucks Báez, a teacher and only one of three women at the event. She works in the kitchen of a nearby cockfighting establishment with her husband, a job she said has allowed them to send their daughter to college in Florida and paid for the education of their son, who is now an engineer.
They feared the federal ban would sink them financially, especially given that Puerto Rico is mired in a 13-year recession as it struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria and tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load.
“I told my husband we would have to sell water at stoplights,” Báez said.
While cockfighters and government officials in Puerto Rico celebrated the defiance of the federal ban, animal activists like Wayne Pacelle, founder of the Washington-based Animal Wellness Action, lamented the move.

Photo of fight night at the Campanillas cockfighting club, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico
Fight night at the Campanillas cockfighting club, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019. Governor Wanda Vazquez signed a law to keep cockfighting alive in a bid to protect a 400-year-old tradition practiced across the island despite a federal ban that goes into effect next Friday. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

PETA Latino Rejected the Governor’s Move

Pacelle said he believes the estimate of cockfighting’s economic impact for Puerto Rico is inflated and dismisses arguments that the activity is a tradition for the island.

“Just because people are enthusiastic about their sport does not mean it’s part of their culture. There is something gratuitous about cockfighting that offends the sensibilities of people.” — Wayne Pacelle, founder of the Washington-based Animal Wellness Action
“Just because people are enthusiastic about their sport does not mean it’s part of their culture,” he said. “There is something gratuitous about cockfighting that offends the sensibilities of people.”
PETA Latino also rejected the governor’s move, saying it defied modern standards of ethics and compassion. The group accused local government officials of protecting a “cruel industry.”
Some Puerto Rico legislators believe the fight over the island’s effort to avoid the federal ban will end up in court.
And many cockfighting enthusiasts insist a ban would only drive events underground again.
Cockfighters like Sigfredo Rivera vowed to keep participating as much as possible.
“You have no idea how depressed we were,” he said of the federal ban. “I didn’t quit, and I won’t quit.”
[activecampaign form=29]

DON'T MISS

How About an Honest Conversation About the Range of Light Monument Proposal?

DON'T MISS

UConn Coach Geno Auriemma Breaks NCAA Wins Record With 1,217th Victory

DON'T MISS

Fresno Doctors Will Pay $2.4 Million to Settle Kickback Allegations, DOJ Says

DON'T MISS

Warriors Guard De’Anthony Melton to Undergo Season-Ending Knee Surgery

DON'T MISS

Massive Ground Beef Recall Affects Restaurants Nationwide, USDA Warns

DON'T MISS

Chris Stapleton Wins 4 CMA Awards, but Morgan Wallen Is Entertainer of the Year

DON'T MISS

These Fresno Schools Are Unsafe and in Bad Condition. And No One Is Complaining

DON'T MISS

Putin Says Russia Has Tested a New Intermediate Range Missile in a Strike on Ukraine

DON'T MISS

SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Who Led US Crackdown on Cryptocurrencies, to Step Down

DON'T MISS

Is Fresno Mobile Home Park Controversy Over? Tenants Applaud Federal Judge’s Ruling

UP NEXT

What Will Happen to CNBC and MSNBC When They No Longer Have a Corporate Connection to NBC News?

UP NEXT

This Kitty Seeks a Quiet Home to Call Her Own

UP NEXT

Pope to Make Late Italian Teenager Carlo Acutis the First Millennial Saint on April 27

UP NEXT

US Vetoes UN Ceasefire Resolution in Gaza Conflict

UP NEXT

Israeli Officials Demand the Right to Strike Hezbollah Under Any Cease-Fire Deal for Lebanon

UP NEXT

Spain Will Legalize Hundreds of Thousands of Undocumented Migrants in the Next 3 Years

UP NEXT

TSMC Walks a Geopolitical Tightrope

UP NEXT

Volunteers Came Back to Nonprofits in 2023, After the Pandemic Tanked Participation

UP NEXT

New Study: Proposed Trump Tariffs Could Cost US Consumers $78 Billion a Year

UP NEXT

Iran Defies International Pressure, Increasing Its Stockpile of Near Weapons-Grade Uranium, UN Says

Warriors Guard De’Anthony Melton to Undergo Season-Ending Knee Surgery

2 hours ago

Massive Ground Beef Recall Affects Restaurants Nationwide, USDA Warns

2 hours ago

Chris Stapleton Wins 4 CMA Awards, but Morgan Wallen Is Entertainer of the Year

2 hours ago

These Fresno Schools Are Unsafe and in Bad Condition. And No One Is Complaining

2 hours ago

Putin Says Russia Has Tested a New Intermediate Range Missile in a Strike on Ukraine

2 hours ago

SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Who Led US Crackdown on Cryptocurrencies, to Step Down

2 hours ago

Is Fresno Mobile Home Park Controversy Over? Tenants Applaud Federal Judge’s Ruling

2 hours ago

Wiggins, Curry Power Warriors to Dominant Win Over Hawks

3 hours ago

Sale and Skubal Claim Cy Young Awards After Historic Pitching Triple Crown Seasons

3 hours ago

What Will Happen to CNBC and MSNBC When They No Longer Have a Corporate Connection to NBC News?

3 hours ago

How About an Honest Conversation About the Range of Light Monument Proposal?

It sometimes seems that we have lost the ability to truly communicate with one another. It is not so much what we say to one another, but ho...

45 minutes ago

45 minutes ago

How About an Honest Conversation About the Range of Light Monument Proposal?

1 hour ago

UConn Coach Geno Auriemma Breaks NCAA Wins Record With 1,217th Victory

1 hour ago

Fresno Doctors Will Pay $2.4 Million to Settle Kickback Allegations, DOJ Says

2 hours ago

Warriors Guard De’Anthony Melton to Undergo Season-Ending Knee Surgery

2 hours ago

Massive Ground Beef Recall Affects Restaurants Nationwide, USDA Warns

2 hours ago

Chris Stapleton Wins 4 CMA Awards, but Morgan Wallen Is Entertainer of the Year

2 hours ago

These Fresno Schools Are Unsafe and in Bad Condition. And No One Is Complaining

2 hours ago

Putin Says Russia Has Tested a New Intermediate Range Missile in a Strike on Ukraine

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend