Jan-Albert Hootsen: Cockfighting Ruffles More Feathers in Mexico Jan-Albert Hootsen - Vocativ
go to original May 5, 2014

Readying the roosters for the fight. (Vocativ/Chema Artero)

TEXCOCO, Mexico — Several hundred years have passed since Spanish colonists brought cockfighting from the Philippines to Mexico, and today it’s one of the country’s most cherished traditions. In the United States, the practice is banned in all 50 states, but in Mexico, where it’s legal and regulated, both rich and poor have celebrated the sport - from Emiliano Zapata, a leader of the Mexican Revolution, to Jorge Hank Rhon, the infamous former mayor of Tijuana.

In recent years, however, opposition has mounted against cockfighting. Last month, Jorge Emilio González, a Mexican senator, asked the government to ban the practice, and a steady stream of critics have publicly lambasted it as a cruel and barbaric blood sport. The main reason: The birds enter the ring with razors tied to their legs, which make the bouts brief and deadly. “Cockfights in Mexico are a spectacle attended by minors,” says González. “[They] could provoke violence.”

... While the sport is regulated, in part to make it more humane, animal rights groups and others that say cockfighting is a clear case of animal abuse. And over the past year, across the country, observers say there have been a growing number of protests in the streets, demanding that cockfighting be banned altogether.

A number of legislators have begun to listen.

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