UPC United Poultry
Concerns
July 2018
The seizure is believed to be the largest bust of an alleged cockfighting outfit in Massachusetts.Hundreds of roosters might have to be euthanized after Northampton cockfighting bust.
Birds rested in their cages on Tuesday. Nearly 400 birds were found in
an illegal Northampton cockfighting pit last week. Most of them will have to
be euthanized.
GLOBE STAFF AND GLOBE CORRESPONDENT May 29, 2018
NORTHAMPTON — In August 2014, Ravenwold Greenhouses appeared to be the
picture of a quaint New England farm.
“Our greenhouse is growing house plants, mums, asters and more,” the
operators of the Northampton establishment wrote at the time on Facebook.
“Our fields are filled with vegetables galore. Coming soon are melons and
some great sized pumpkins!!”
That verdant scene was a far cry from what Northampton police detectives,
armed with a search warrant, discovered Thursday when they raided the
58-acre farm and seized nearly 400 roosters “purposefully bred for
cockfighting,” a vicious blood sport outlawed in all 50 states, according to
a statement from the MSPCA, which is investigating with police.
The seizure is believed to be the largest bust of an alleged cockfighting
outfit in Massachusetts. As of Tuesday, no charges had been filed in the
case, police said, but the probe was ongoing.
“Our understanding is that there was a small ring set up in one of the
buildings with some blood splattering on the ground — but it didn’t appear
as if fights for money were taking place on the property as there was no
room for spectators — so it was likely a training ring,” said Rob Halpin, a
spokesman for the MSCPA, in an e-mail.
Mass. banned cockfighting in 1836. But this blood sport just won’t die
Last week’s seizure of roosters in Northampton in connection with an alleged
cockfighting ring was the latest in a series of similar busts. Read Story
The group said the birds seized from the farm were brought to MSPCA-Nevins
Farm in Methuen, and they’ll have to be euthanized.
“Cockfighting is an extremely cruel blood sport and we condemn the callous
disregard for life shown by those responsible for raising these birds to
fight,” said Mike Keiley, the head of adoption centers and programs at
Nevins Farm, in the release. “The kindest thing we can do for the vast
majority of these birds is to humanely euthanize them. The roosters cannot
be rehabilitated — all we can do now is spare them the brutal and bloody
fate that awaits them in the ring.”
The MSPCA said 45 rooster chicks, though bred for fighting, might eventually
be adoptable, and about 100 hens will probably end up in sanctuaries or
homes when their medical and behavior checks are completed.
Paul Duga Jr., the owner of the Northampton farm where the birds were
seized, said Tuesday morning that he’s not involved in day-to-day operations
and hadn’t heard about the raid.
He said he bought the farm about a decade ago after the family owners lost
it to foreclosure “so they wouldn’t get thrown out.”
“Mainly, they grow flowers there,” Duga said. “They basically grow flowers
and vegetables. They have other stuff; they have livestock” as well as
chickens. He said the farmers also rent space to vegetable growers.
“It’s a typical little farm that’s struggling to survive,” Duga said.
A man who answered the phone at the farm Tuesday declined to discuss the
case in detail.
“There ain’t nobody that wants to discuss it, and there’s nothing to do with
the greenhouses,” the man said before hanging up on a reporter. “My brother
did it 15, 20 years ago, and it’s a separate entity. I have nothing to do
with it, my brother passed away. OK? That’s it.”
Later, at the farm, a man who identified himself only as “Mr. Adams” said he
didn’t see any police on the property last week. The man said his family
leases the land to other tenants and they’d never had any problems
previously.
He also claimed there were no roosters on the farm; yet as he spoke to a
reporter, a rooster was heard crowing in the distance.
Meanwhile, at the MSPCA-Nevins Farm in Methuen on Tuesday, the rescued
roosters were taking up two floors of the barn. A number of roosters were
placed in small crates on the first floor. Additional roosters were being
kept in cages on tables on the second floor.
The birds periodically broke out into rooster calls that could be heard from
outside the barn. Volunteers working with them were equipped with gloves and
earplugs.
Keiley said in a follow-up interview at the facility that his team will
probably have to hang onto the birds while the investigation is pending,
before they’re ultimately euthanized.
“The animals we keep alive here are like bags of heroin kept in evidence,”
Keiley said, adding that the process is wrenching.
“It’s heartbreaking because we’ll be the ones who are going to be taking
care of them day-to-day, but we know it’s better for them to be euthanized
here than to die in the ring,” Keiley said.
Though rare, cockfighting busts in Massachusetts are not without precedent.
Halpin said the MSPCA has investigated six cockfighting cases in the state
going back to the early 1990s, with the number of birds seized in those
cases ranging from 50 to 200.
“The Northampton case is twice as large as any previous case the MSPCA has
seen,” he wrote.
Massachusetts was the first state in America to ban cockfighting, in 1836,
and staging such a contest is a felony, carrying a maximum fine of $1,000
and up to five years in jail.
Regarding the Northampton case, Halpin said the birds probably “would have
been brought to facilities beyond the Northampton property and there’s no
telling at this point . . . where that might have been. But cockfighting is
highly professionalized and underground. Some of these birds could have been
fighting in the basements of private homes.”
During a prior raid in Middleborough in 2005, police discovered cockfighting
paraphernalia and more than 400 chickens and roosters on a 15-acre gated
property. Investigators determined that a man on the property was supplying
birds for “cockfighting enthusiasts,” a detective said at the time.
In another case in 2016, 24 people were nabbed in Tewksbury for their
alleged roles in a cockfighting ring that yielded 18 chickens with spurs on
their feet, five of them severely injured. Police also recovered several
packages of spurs, kits with tape, and over $13,000 in cash.
Cockfighting is as brutal as it is secretive, according to animal rights
groups.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says on its
website that the roosters’ “natural fighting instincts are exaggerated
through breeding, feeding, training, steroids and vitamins. A bird may
undergo several months of training before a fight, which may involve running
long obstacle courses (and even treadmills) and practice fights with other
roosters.”
Bets on fights can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars,
the ASPCA says, and roosters are even equipped with weapons.
“Once in the ring, roosters often wear knives or artificial gaffs (long,
dagger-like attachments) that are sharp enough to puncture a lung, pierce an
eye or break bones in order to inflict maximum injury,” the ASPCA says.
“While the rules usually do not require one or both birds to die in order to
declare a winner, death is often the outcome due to the severity of
injuries.”
Though outlawed in all 50 states, the practice is classified as a felony in
only 40, according to the ASPCA. Forty-three states have laws against
attending a cockfighting event, and 38 bar even the possession of birds for
fighting purposes, the ASPCA says.
Thursday’s seizure of nearly 400 roosters was dwarfed by a raid last year in
Val Verde, Calif., when nearly 7,000 birds were discovered in a remote
canyon area, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control
announced at the time.
The department described that raid as “the largest seizure of fighting birds
in U.S. history.”
Nationwide, an estimated 40,000 people participate in professional
dogfighting, and cockfighting is believed to be “similarly widespread,” the
Justice Department said in a statement last year.
“In addition, animal fighting activities attract other serious crimes, such
as gambling, drug dealing, weapons offenses and money laundering,” the
release said.
Karen Davis, founder and president of United Poultry Concerns, a
Virginia-based nonprofit that runs a sanctuary for rescued birds, said in a
telephone interview that gambling is a major factor in the allure of
cockfighting, but not the only one.
“Some people like to set animals against each other in staged animal
fights,” Davis said, adding that a champion rooster’s owner “wants to be
identified with a rooster who wins fights. These owners will force these
birds to continue to fight even after they’re half-dead or run away. It’s a
horrible activity from every standpoint.”
She also disputed the notion that roosters are “born fighters.”
On her sanctuary, Davis said, roosters will occasionally engage in “ritual
showdowns and faceoffs. But it virtually never goes beyond that. It’s not
like they get into these bloody battles.”
Emily Sweeney and Jeremiah Manion of the Globe Staff contributed to this
report.
For more information, visit Cockfighting.