Thread: Georgia-bred birds dominate Mexican cockfighting ring

(Rooster--immigration connection.)

Georgia-bred birds dominate Mexican cockfighting ring

By JEREMY SCHWARTZ
Cox News Service

Published on: 05/02/08

SAN MARCOS, Mexico — Under soaring coconut palms and tropical fruit trees, roosters bred for battle are carried into a glowing, makeshift ring for a fight to the death. High rollers sit at tables placed tight against the wooden borders of the cockfighting arena. Each table is topped with a bottle of American whiskey and cans of cold Mexican beer sweating in the humid night air.

The luxury resort hotels of Acapulco are 40 miles away.


Nancy Flores/Cox Newspapers
(ENLARGE)
Roosters bred for battle are carried into the ring for a fight to the death inside the makeshift cockfighting ring set up for San Marcos's annual fair. Cockfighting is an honored -- and legal -- tradition in Mexico.

Nancy Flores/Cox Newspapers
(ENLARGE)
Two fighting roosters are a blur of feathers as handlers and spectators watch a fight to the death.

Nancy Flores/Cox Newspapers
(ENLARGE)
A glowing, makeshift cockfighting ring is set up under soaring coconut palms and tropical fruit trees for San Marcos's annual fair.

This is another world entirely.

A crowd clad in guayabera shirts and cowboy hats pulls out wads of colorful peso bills to bet on the feathered combatants.

The first match features a local fighting cock against the offspring of a bird born on a Georgia farm. Migrants returning to Mexico brought the bird from that distant state years ago.

The gamecocks surge forward, their head feathers puffing out like a lion's mane. Razor-sharp gaffs are affixed to their legs. The combat is over in minutes, the local bird splayed out on the dirt floor, its feathers stained with blood. The progeny of the Georgia bird has triumphed, as most people figured it would.

Here at San Marcos's annual fair, a 10-day folk bacchanalia of rodeos, dances and drinking, it is the big, bad fighting cocks from the United States - and Georgia in particular - that win the most matches.

Cockfighting has an honored - and legal - tradition in Mexico, especially in rural areas, where no town fair is without its "palenque," or cockfighting ring. But roosters from the United States, not the local talent, are most prized.

"The best birds are the gringos," said Ricardo Chavez, whose family organized this year's cockfighting matches at the fair. "All the best bloodlines are from up north."

San Marcos, a hardscrabble town along Mexico's Pacific coast, has been sending the bulk of its migrants to the metro Atlanta area for decades, part of the wave of illegal immigration to fill construction, landscaping and other laborer jobs in the United States.

And for decades, some migrants have returned for San Marcos's annual fair, bringing with them Georgia-raised fighting cocks that regularly destroy the competition.

Javier Meza, a migrant from San Marcos who worked as a laborer in Atlanta until he returned two months ago, brought about 40 birds he bought from a farm in Rome, Ga. His cherished roosters took part in this year's town fair, which ended on April 30.

"The birds from Georgia are superior, superior," he said.

American fighting cocks are a staple at town fairs throughout Mexico, said Nicolas Zedillo, who edits a Mexican cockfighting magazine. The American birds are prized both for their healthy breeding and what many consider a ferocious spirit.

"It's the way they are raised," Zedillo said. "They get good nutrition and good medicine. The American birds are characterized by being of the finest stock. They just keep fighting."

An annual cockfighting tournament in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo features matches between U.S. and Mexican handlers and birds. And a team from Bryan, Texas, took part in the Texcoco fair, Mexico's most famous fair, in March.

Meza said the key to success isn't just a quality American bird, but a training regimen that most handlers guard closely. Like managers preparing boxers for a fight, trainers put gamecocks through various exercises designed to build their endurance and strength. In one, food is mixed in with hay, forcing the birds use their powerful legs to dig for their food. Other exercises target the wings.

A small, but growing, animal rights movement in Mexico has protested cockfighting, but with little success. Cockfighting is celebrated in song and top Mexican music stars perform at the largest cockfighting fairs.

That stands in stark contrast to the United States, where cockfighting will be prohibited in all 50 states once a ban in Louisiana takes effect in August.

U.S. officials also are hoping to stamp out the long tradition of exporting fighting cocks.

President Bush last year signed a federal law making the transporting of birds across state or country lines for fighting purposes a felony (the transporting of gamecocks for breeding or show purposes remains legal). And tougher border security has made back and forth migration rarer, reducing the number of migrants willing to travel home to places like San Marcos for the annual fair.

On paper, Mexico does not allow the importation of gamecocks unless they meet certain requirements, but cockfighting experts say there are always ways to get across the border. Handlers say the transportation costs about $60 per bird and top American birds go for about $350 to $400, depending on the age.

But more than law enforcement, it may be the economics of immigration that eventually slow the flow of gamecocks.

"Three years ago, it cost $1,200 (to hire a people smuggler to re-cross the border after the fair). Now it costs more than $3,000," Meza said.

But even though fewer Atlanta-area migrants returned to San Marcos this year, cockfighting experts expect the flow to continue, at least for the near future .

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/st ... _0502.html

How horribly disgusting! How can any human being watch two animals kill each other for the sport of it? Barbaric!