The arena is crowded, smoky, and loud. A din of shouting and cheering rises and falls,
punctuated now and then by the crowing of roosters. Fluorescent lights, not all of them
working, hang from a low, yellow particleboard ceiling. A light snow is falling, and it
takes a moment to realize that it is comprised of finely chopped chicken feathers rising
from a small cockpit in the arena's center. There, two roosters--one a deep rusty red,
the other a muted gray--rise in a flurry of wings and shuffling feet, flailing under the
watchful eyes of their handlers and a referee. The birds come down, tangled like boxers
in a clinch, and fall as one on their sides, still flailing, as the crowd cheers.
"Handle!" Yells the referee, a tall, stout man with long sideburns. It is nearly impossible
to hear him. Each handler takes hold of “his” bird. The red rooster's gaff--the thin, curved,
2-inch spike attached to the rear of each bird's leg--has sunk deep into the gray rooster's
thigh, and the red bird's handler reaches in and works it loose. Each man picks “his” rooster
up for a 20-second break. The referee scrapes two lines in the clay with the stick he carries
and yells, "Pit!" Each man sets his bird behind one of the lines and let go.
"Eat him up, red roostah!" Yells a tall, skinny 14-year-old with a growling rasp of a
voice in the second row of the bleachers. He is settling into his seat, holding a hamburger
from the busy concession stand at one end of the arena. The birds rush each other and rise,
flailing and shuffling, their wings making sharp snapping noises.
They tangle once more, and this time the gaff is hung in the gray's wing. The handlers
disengage the panting birds and the referee points them toward one of three adjacent drag pits.
The fight will finish there, clearing the main pit for a fresh pair. High turnover, which keeps
the cheering and betting levels high, is the aim. Blood drips from the gray rooster's leg as
the men and birds leave the main pit.
Cockfighting is a centuries-old blood sport in which two or more specially bred birds, known
as gamecocks, are placed in an enclosure to fight, for the primary purposes of gambling and
entertainment. A cockfight usually results in the death of one of the birds; sometimes it
ends in the death of both. A typical cockfight can last anywhere from several minutes to more
than half an hour.
Winners as well as losers suffer severe injuries including broken wings, punctured lungs, and
gouged eyes.
The fact that some people are still titillated by watching two animals forced to fight
for their lives in a pit so they can gamble on the outcome says something particularly nasty
about humanity, not just about the people involved in it. It says something about the society
that tolerates such behavior.
Nothing is going to change it, As long as society will be consist of humans.
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