Puerto Rico faces what may be cockfighting end
Congress passes farm bill, extends ban to territories
It’s Puerto Rico’s answer to the bull ring — a death-in-the-afternoon blood sport.
But now the commonwealth is facing the end of cockfighting.
U.S. lawmakers are poised to close down the thriving island pastime as part of the farm bill that passed the House of Representatives Wednesday and goes to President Donald Trump for his signature. The measure would extend a prohibition on animal fighting to U.S. territories including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; it’s already illegal in all 50 states.
But in Puerto Rico, cockfighting is governed by the commonwealth and ingrained in the culture — it was first documented in the 18th century but likely existed for hundreds of years before that.
“I invite any member who wishes to come to Puerto Rico and see how regulated the cockfighting industry is to come and visit,” Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon, the island’s non-voting House member, told colleagues Wednesday.
Opponents of the measure also say it will have a devastating effect on the islands’ economies, noting that in Puerto Rico alone the cockfighting industry generates some $18 million a year and employs some 27,000 people.
“We’re all going crazy. Everybody is desperate,” said 86-year-old Angel Ortiz, who owns a cockfighting ring in the city of Bayamon. “There are so many people who make a living off of this.”
Cockfighting was once popular in rural areas of the U.S. South and Latin America and is one of the oldest sports known to history.
Handlers place two roosters into a pit, paired by weight and age. Genetically programmed to attack — and fitted with metal spurs called gaffs — they spar as onlookers place wagers. The battles often end in death.
In Puerto Rico, the sport arrived with Spanish conquistadors and in this century, there have have been more than 100 cockpits called galleras and 200,000 fighting birds, according to commonwealth figures.
The battles and the betting are torrid. But many see the sport as brutal.
“Most people would be appalled that cockfighting was not already illegal,” said Ashley Byrne, New York-based associate director with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “In a civilized society and a modern society, forcing animals to fight for their lives is cruel.”
Eugenio Crespo, a former director of the Federation of Animals of Puerto Rico, said his own father kept roosters and groomed them for battle. But Crespo turned against the sport and spent the past 30 years advocating for the feathered combatants.
“When you are a kid, sometimes you don’t realize how abusive this activity is,” he said. “But it is something that definitely gets engraved in your mind.”
Top commonwealth officials aligned with the industry to oppose the ban. Gonzalez Colon blasted the move as an example of the kind of mistreatment the commonwealth suffers without representation in Congress.
Gov. Ricardo Rossello traveled to Washington to demand that the island be excluded, but he arrived too late. Legislators unexpectedly moved up the vote and approved the bill, which already passed the Senate.
Many in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were saddened by approval of the ban, expected to go into effect in a year.
Stacey Plaskett, the U.S. Virgin Islands’ congressional representative, said she would continue to fight the bill.
“I believed it to be a tremendous overreach of the federal government, which has not supported other basic needs of the territory,” she said in a statement.
Associated Press contributed.