AR-News: (US CA) Lawmakers look to quash animal fights

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Bill's supporters: Commercial poultry at risk 
By Marc Lightdale
Capital News Service 


ANNAPOLIS -- Spectators at illegal dog- and cockfights would be subject to 
criminal penalties under a bill proposed by Del. Charles Boutin, R-Harford. 
Watching such dubious sports encourages them to continue and contributes to 
other illegal activities that tend to follow such fights, according to speakers 
at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. 
Boutin's bill would making observing animal fights a misdemeanor subject to 
90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, but would make breeding or transporting 
fighting dogs a felony worth three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Arranging 
cockfights, breeding fighting birds or fitting fighting birds with enhancements 
-- knifelike implements called gaffs or slashers or other names -- also would 
be felonies subject to the three-year, $5,000 penalty. 
In addition, cockfighting is a threat to agriculture, Boutin said, because a 
virus associated with fighting known as "Exotic Newcastle Disease" could 
spread to commercial poultry. 
The disease, which wreaked havoc in California in 1971 and led to the 
destruction of 12 million birds, is both a contagious and fatal viral disease 
affecting all types of birds, according to the California Department of Food and 
Agriculture. 
In 2002, Maryland's poultry industry ranked No. 7 nationally, according to 
Statistics Director Norman Bennett at the Maryland Agricultural Statistics 
Service. 
The Humane Society is supportive of the legislation. 
Wayne Pacelle, spokesman for the Humane Society, said, "People pit animals 
against one another. It's illegal in all 50 states, and a felony in 47 states." 




full story:

http://www.dailytimesonline.com/news/stories/20040126/localnews/294702.html



"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.",
Albert Einstein

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