Cockfighting - over 1,270 birds
Surrey, BC (CA)Incident Date: Wednesday, Feb 27, 2008
Disposition: Alleged
Abuser names unreleased
Case Updates: 2 update(s) available
Eileen Drever could hear the roosters crowing as she drove toward the B.C. property where she and a team of RCMP and animal cruelty officers would execute a search warrant.
They came upon a field of more than 1,270 scabby and agitated cocks tethered to barrels around 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday and immediately set about combing the farm for evidence of a cockfighting ring.
What they uncovered at a total of three separate properties in the Cloverdale area of Surrey is believed to mark the largest cockfighting ring ever discovered in Canada.
Pits, spurs, boxing muffs and surgical tools were uncovered, leaving the officers no choice but to cull the birds. One of the buildings at one of the properties soon became the death house where for 12 hours 17 officers from B.C.'s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and 11 RCMP officers systematically severed the birds' spinal chords.
They worked all night from 5 p.m. until the early hours of the next morning. Devastation set in around sunrise when Ms. Drever's belief that the job was done was shattered by the clucking of cocks they had missed.
"It was just after 4 a.m. and we all thought we were finished," she said. "Everyone was looking at each other, I could see, we were all making eye contact and thinking 'OK this is good, it's done.' Until we heard some other roosters and you could actually see the change in faces."
Cockfighting is banned in Canada and Louisiana is the last place in the United States where it is legal, with a ban to take effect in August. It is, however, widely accepted in parts of Asia and Latin America.
Most cockfights involve gambling and are considered a form of entertainment. During a cockfight, cocks -- which are naturally inclined to spar with one another -- are suited with spurs as long as human fingers and placed in a ring. They claw each other until death or until they are too badly maimed to continue.
Some of the cocks at the Surrey-area farms had been fattened with steroids and were considered game birds -- worth up to $3,000 -- that were being shipped to southeast Asia, officials said. Others suffered infected cuts, missing eyes and head wounds.
"Each and every staff member joins the SPCA because of their love of animals, this is not something that we signed up for," Ms. Drever said.
"Unfortunately, it had to happen. It's a [judge's] order."
The officers' only solace was the belief that through euthanasia the cocks were being saved from a more traumatic death, she added. "We were saving them by doing what we did.
This is something that staff had to get their head around was that they were act ually saving them from a horrible, horrible death.
"It was just horrific, absolutely horrific. I've been with the society for 28 years and that was one of the most gruesome tasks. It just angers me that the laws are not strong enough and these people get a slap on the wrist. It just makes me furious to think that all these birds had to die for the sake of entertainment."
According to Global TV, the $1.6-million property is owned by a couple who bought the farm in 1998. Those at the farm last Wednesday were surprised when officers appeared, Ms. Drever said. The property's buildings were littered with couches, fridges, cooking utensils, televisions, bottles of alcohol and rope.
"This was clearly a gathering, a party, if you will," she said. A box of spurs was found alongside medical equipment, which officers believe cock owners used to tend to their wounded birds.
The RCMP detained the owners during the search. One of the workers on the property spoke to Global TV, but denied there was any cockfighting going on at the farm.
"They are talking about cruelty to animals. They are the ones being cruel. They strangled, they twisted the heads of the chickens. They killed all of our chickens. We are talking about hundreds," he said, declining to give his name.
Charges will be sought against up to 30 individuals under Criminal Code sections related to unlawful fighting of birds and unlawful keeping of a cockpit. The City of Surrey is seeking to have the buildings in which the cockfights occurred destroyed.
The SPCA refused to identify the three properties on which they raids took place, but the RCMP said they were located in the 16300-block 50 Ave., 4800-block 168 Ave. and 3900-block 176th St.
In 1998, 39 people were arrested in connection with a suspected cockfighting ring at a home in Burnaby, B.C. Three were charged and one was convicted.
Three years later, SPCA officers seized 41 birds from the same house after police stumbled on a suspected cockfighting ring while investigating a shooting in the neighbourhood.
Case UpdatesFive Metro Vancouver men are facing charges after police shut down what they say was the largest cockfighting ring in Canada.
The men were charged Tuesday with keeping a cockpit in Cloverdale, B.C.
Three of them were to appear in court on Tuesday for a bail hearing and warrants have been issued for the arrests of two other suspects.
Police say all the men are believed to be connected to three properties raided on Feb. 27 and the subsequent destruction of nearly 1,300 fighting birds.
Shawn Eccles, the SPCA's chief animal protection officer, said that under the Criminal Code, if a cockpit is discovered, all the roosters must be seized and a judge must order their destruction.
Eccles said in a statement that the birds were tethered to barrels and some had infected cuts, missing eyes and head wounds.
"The most horrific part of the warrant was having to euthanize every single one of the roosters on the property," he said.
"Unfortunately, the offence took place prior to new, stronger penalties that were introduced into the Criminal Code earlier this year, but we are very pleased that formal charges have now been laid and that this massive cockfighting operation has been permanently shut down."
More than 50 fighting birds were found on another property involved in the search warrant but the SPCA had no legal authority to remove them because no cockpits were found on the site, Eccles said.
If convicted, the men could face a maximum fine of $3,000 and up to six months in jail. | Source: Canadian Press - Sept 2, 2008
Update posted on Sep 2, 2008 - 6:02PM |
"Does this look like a cockfighting ring to you?"
Ruben Rodriguez swept his arms wide open yesterday as he welcomed visitors into the makeshift shack with particle-board walls and dirt floors -- the same six-by-six-metre outbuilding on a Surrey farm that the RCMP and SPCA allege was part of the largest illegal cockfighting ring in Canada.
"If there were birds fighting in here with blades on their feet, that would be dangerous," the 57-year-old Surrey machinist said matter-of-factly. "There would be no room for spectators. And do you see any blood spatter? No. There is no cockfighting going on here.
Pedro Nitura gestures in an outbuilding authorities say he and other tenants on three farms used for illegal cockfights.
"I have never been to a cockfight in B.C. We are just a bunch of guys who raise these birds as a hobby and some we ship to the Philippines. The cockfighting rings there are huge -- like a small stadium. We are just victims of assumptions here."
Armed with a warrant, a 17-member SPCA team, along with 11 RCMP officers and three Surrey bylaw officers, swept down on three Cloverdale farms last Wednesday and Thursday. They were in the 16000-block 50th Avenue, 3900-block 176th Street and the 4800-block 168th Street, where Rodriguez and a dozen others rent space.
"On two of the properties, we found five fighting pits, 1,270 fighting birds tethered to barrels as well as a wide range of paraphernalia associated with cockfighting," said SPCA chief animal protection officer Shawn Eccles.
"The evidence collected included boxing muffs, the spurs of gaffs used to slash opponents, scorecards used to record the win/loss records of individual breeders, needles, syringes and other medications used on injured birds, scales and agitators -- a feathered mock-up of a bird on a stick which is used to agitate birds and encourage aggression."
The SPCA alleges many of the birds were in poor health, and every rooster found on a property with a cockpit had to be euthanized due to Section 447 (2) of the Criminal Code of Canada. Fifty birds on the 50th Avenue property were allowed to stay put because no cockpit was found on the property.
"Because of the legislation, we had no choice but to destroy the birds," said an emotional SPCA senior animal protection officer Eileen Drever. "If we didn't destroy these birds they would have died a horrible death."
Shaking his head in disbelief as he walked past scores of black garbage bags holding chicken carcasses on Saturday, Pedro Nitura figured he has lost the estimated $30,000 he has spent over the last five years raising his roundheads, sweaters and hots.
Like many, he bought two females and one male from a U.S. breeder for about $2,500 US.
Birds can fetch more than $1,000 when sold in the Philippines.
"I am here every day for two hours feeding them and checking on them," said Surrey's Nitura, 52, a forklift driver. "My birds were healthy and they were killed for nothing. This is a hobby for many of us. Some guys come out on the weekends and bring their families and have a barbecue. Why would they do this to us?"
When asked why the SPCA found metal fighting spurs on the properties, Rodriguez said: "Those knives are souvenirs from the Philippines. We don't use them."
Charges of unlawful fighting of birds and keeping of a cockpit under the Criminal Code could be pursued against up to 37 people, but SPCA officials called the penalties -- six months in jail and a two-year ban on owning animals -- a mere slap on the wrist.
The property owners who rented out sections of their property to bird owners have been told they must get rid of the dead birds and remove all outbuildings and coops.
RCMP Const. Annie Linteau said police were first tipped off about the cockfighting ring in April 2006, when members of the Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team began investigating.
"Investigations like this do take some time, given the investigators do face some investigative obstacles," Linteau said.
"They are not well-publicized events and often done out of the public's eye. And there is a strict invitation in effect which makes it difficult to infiltrate."
Rodriguez and Nitura said they are weighing legal action, arguing the animals were wrongly destroyed based on outdated legislation. | Source: Canada.Com - March 2, 2008
Update posted on Mar 2, 2008 - 8:13PM |
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