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One of the rarest of Warren Oates' movies, with a genuine cult following, "Cockfighter" also stars Harry Dean Stanton. From the novel by Charles Willeford.
After 2008, cockfighting will be illegal in all 50 USA states, though it continues to flourish underground, particularly in the Sun Belt.
The Associated Press
Wednesday 27 June 2007 16:44
Louisiana to ban
cockfighting in 2008
by Doug Simpson
Associated Press Writer
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana will ban cockfighting next year, becoming the last state to outlaw the blood sport, under a bill approved Wednesday by the Legislature.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco's office said she would sign the measure, which bans the rural tradition in which specially bred roosters fight to the death while spectators place wagers on the outcome.
For years, state lawmakers resisted animal rights activists' efforts to outlaw it, but they relented this year on the condition that the prohibition be delayed. It will take effect in August 2008.
New Mexico, the only other state where cockfighting was legal, outlawed the fights this month, increasing pressure on Louisiana lawmakers.
People in the cockfighting industry argued that an immediate ban would leave some of them with hundreds of chickens that are useless if the fights are illegal, because the animals are bred to fight. House members agreed that the cockfighters should have until next August to sell the birds or kill them off in fights.
State Sen. Art Lentini, the Legislature's chief opponent of cockfighting, said he believed the sport's popularity in Louisiana will actually end this summer, because lawmakers also approved an immediate ban on gambling at the rooster fights. Wagering is a major draw for crowds, which attend the fights at arenas throughout the state.
"The gambling ban really puts an end to cockfighting. Betting is the real reason people go to those fights," said Lentini, a Republican from a suburb of New Orleans.
The Senate voted unanimously for the bill with the 2008 effective date. Two senators, both of whom represent areas where cockfighting is widespread, skipped the vote.
Wayne Pacelle, head of the Humane Society of the United States, released a statement praising the vote. Congress has also toughened federal penalties for people caught transporting fighting roosters across state lines, he said.
"With a strengthened federal law against cockfighting in effect and the new statewide ban on gambling, there is very little room for cockfighters to maneuver and they should just pack it in," Pacelle said in the statement.
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© 2007 The Associated Press
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