A blood-soaked rainbow of feathers decorates the ground, the last breaths of a dying rooster escape in weak squawks, onlookers cheer and a victorious bettor happily accepts his payout. The losing bird, with gouged eyes, broken bones and punctured lungs, is shoveled to his final resting place — the closest trash can. This isn’t a one-time event — it’s a common occurrence in North Texas.
Cockfighting is the illegal practice of forcing gamefowl roosters to fight one another, often to the death. Small knives, called gaffs, are tied to the bird’s spurs, and the flightless fowl are penned in a ring until one of the birds cannot continue. Gamefowl were intentionally bred for the blood sport and are a naturally aggressive breed, but fighting birds are given steroids and supplements to maximize damage.
“I have seen so many roosters bleeding out, left to die,” said Maura Davies, a spokesperson for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Texas. “It just breaks my heart. It’s so hard to see, suffering. Watching animals suffer at that level is always hard, no matter when or where it happens.”…