(Beth Clifton collage)
Bill basically would legalize cockfighting unless cockers were caught charging admission
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas–– “The Arkansas House passed the pro cockfighting bill, with an alarming 69 out of 100 state representatives voting for HB1611,” Animal Wellness Action state representative Desiree Bender posted to social media late on March 31, 2025, “potentially making our state the nation’s first safe haven for cockfighters.”
HB 1611, passed with only 13 “nay” votes and 12 abstentions, and with only two Republican opponents, among 81 Republican members of the Arkansas House was referred immediately afterward to the Arkansas Senate judiciary committee.
If cleared by the judiciary committee, HB 1611 will go before the full 35-member Arkansas Senate, with 29 Republican members, against only six Democrats.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Legal cover for fighting cock breeders
“Current law already protects legitimate poultry breeders by requiring proof of intent—knowingly breeding or selling birds for fighting—shielding those raising poultry for lawful purposes like farming or shows,” Bender explained.
“Yet HB 1611 weakens this, offering legal cover to those breeding roosters for cockfighting under the guise of National Poultry Improvement Plan certification.
“It ties law enforcement’s hands,” Bender charged, “barring spectator arrests without hard proof of payment—a near-impossible hurdle in underground fights.
“Supporters claim it guards against wrongful prosecutions, but with zero cases of innocent breeders targeted, that’s a flimsy excuse. The real effect?
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Paves a legal path for cockfighters”
“It paves a legal path for cockfighters to churn out fighting roosters for export,” Bender detailed, “fueling bloody online cockfighting markets like e-sabong,” the Philippine version of online cockfighting associated with at least 34 murders and disappearances, “all while dodging accountability.
“These 69 lawmakers either missed the mark or knowingly backed a bill that trades Arkansas’s integrity for a nonexistent problem,” assessed Bender.
Those 69 lawmakers also voted against public health and safety, knowingly or not, and voted most conspicuously of all against the health of the Arkansas state economy.
(Beth Clifton collage)
No state has more to lose from H5N1
Proportionate to state economic activity, no state has more to lose than Arkansas from the H5N1 avian influenza, transmitted primarily by wild waterfowl, but secondarily by the transport of gamefowl.
“Poultry production,” a $36 billion-a-year industry in Arkansas, “accounts for one in four agricultural jobs in Arkansas,” boasts the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
“Companies that produce and process chicken in Arkansas employ as many as 37,260 people across the state and generate an additional 70,739 jobs in supplier and ancillary industries,” the Arkansas Farm Bureau adds, mentioning that Arkansas ranks third among the 50 U.S. states in production of meat chickens and fourth in production of turkeys.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Half a million dead birds
But the Arkansas poultry industry has already lost more than half a million birds to H5N1 and H5N1 control measures since 2022.
And H5N1 in 2025 has already turned up in one “hobby flock,” the standard euphemism for gamefowl producers, after having been discovered in two in 2024.
Each infected flock is a potential vector for spreading H5N1 to others via the boots and clothing of gamefowl handlers who also often work in the poultry industry.
Warning for months against the potential effects of Arkansas HB 1611, Desiree Bender, Animal Wellness Action, and the aligned Center for a Humane Economy were hardly alone.
Former boxer Roy Jones Jr. (right) at “US Gamefowl Commission” meeting.
“U.S. Gamefowl Commission has inserted itself”
“The United States Gamefowl Commission has inserted itself into Arkansas,” Southeast Politics writer Peter Schorsch cautioned on December 11, 2023, “as the organization seeks to unify states around what it describes as a ‘nationwide political movement’ to ‘fight for our Liberties, Freedoms and Rights.’
“That means decriminalizing cockfighting.
“Arkansas lobbying firm JCD Consulting Services has been retained to advocate for the organization and it has hired a staffer to lead fundraising efforts in Arkansas, Jamie Jones,” Schorsch continued, explaining that “The U.S. Gamefowl Commission is led by Anthony DeVore, its president, and Blake Pearce, its vice president.
“The same two men are also in leadership roles with the Oklahoma chapter of the group,” Schorsch explained, “which has been working to reduce fines and criminal penalties for cockfighting in Oklahoma.”
Anthony Devore. (Beth Clifton collage)
Who are the pushers?
As well as lobbying for cockfighters, DeVore has according to his LinkedIn page operated an Ardmore solar energy contracting business called Texoma Solar Solutions since 2015, subject of at least 34 separate sets of unresolved consumer complaints to the Better Business Bureau and at least two lawsuits.
DeVore and Pearce, in Arkansas, appear to be working primarily with John Slavin, whom Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle alleges “has been illegally trafficking birds since Congress banned sales and shipments of fighting birds in 2002.
“Five years later, that crime of fighting bird shipments became a federal felony. And it became a felony in Arkansas in 2009 to sell fighting birds to anyone,” Pacelle mentioned, but the law has not been enforced.
Susanna Watt, founder Anchor Strategies (a lobbying firm). (Beth Clifton collage)
“Schooling cockfighters on how to deceive legislators”
“The newly formed Arkansas Gamefowl Commission has hired lobbyist Suzanna Watt of Anchor Strategies,” Pacelle warned in November 2024.
Watt, Pacelle said, was “schooling cockfighters on how to deceive legislators about who they are and what they do.”
(See Cockfighters, raw milkers, bacteria, & bird flu meet in political alliance, Pro-cockfighting sheriff loses election, anti-cockfighting sheriff loses coin flip and Alleged cockfight hosts charged; Gamefowl Commission head is sued.)
Arkansas, Pacelle noted, is the longtime major crossroads of cockfighting traffic in U.S., by dint of bordering on six other states with major illegal cockfighting issues: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas.
A rooster is removed from his pen by an investigator with the SPCA of Texas.
(SPCA of Texas photo)
Big bust in Hunt County, Texas
Underscoring that point was the March 30, 2025 arrest of 21 alleged cockfighters and seizure of 67 roosters at a cockfighting derby reportedly attended by about 100 people in Hunt County, Texas––about 60 miles from the Arkansas border, east of Dallas.
Hunt County is just north of Titus County, Texas, where on March 15, 2025 sheriff Chris Bragg and sheriff’s lieutenant Craig Brown failed to raid a heavily attended cockfight hosted by their Facebook friend Tim Thompson, a longtime notorious cockfighting advocate, despite extensive advance notice and on-the-scene documentation supplied by drone pilots Steve Hindi of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness and Kevin Chambers, Oklahoma state representative for Animal Wellness Action.
(See Titus County, TX sheriffs didn’t raid Facebook friends’ alleged cockfight.)
Sheriff’s deputies and SPCA of Texas investigators found fighting rings at a residence north of Greenville.
(SPCA of Texas photo)
Three cockfights exposed in three weeks
Both Hunt County and Titus County are also relatively close to Ellis County, immediately south of Dallas, where Hindi and Chambers extensively documented another large cockfight on March 22, 2025.
The Ellis County sheriff’s office responded to Hindi and Chambers’ reports about the cockfight there, but with an as yet unknown outcome.
(See Cockfight exposed in Ferris, Texas, with drone video of the actual fighting.)
The Hunt County raid, reported Kent Miller for the Greenville Herald-Banner, “resulted in multiple arrests and the seizure of more than five dozen live roosters,” beginning “with a tip from concerned citizens made through Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect and Kindness.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Roosters, alive & dead
“Deputies and investigators from the SPCA of Texas,” headquartered in Dallas, “arrived on the scene and a search warrant was obtained to investigate further,” Miller wrote.
“The ensuing search uncovered paraphernalia commonly used in cockfighting operations. An order of seizure was obtained to seize the live roosters, along with 10 dead ones.
“Roosters were found in individual pens and transport boxes throughout the property,” Miller recounted, along with “short knives and gaffs, scales, a training dummy, syringes, first aid supplies, antibiotics and various performance-enhancing supplements.
“An indoor arena containing a makeshift fighting ring and holding pens was splashed with blood and littered with feathers,” Miller said.
“A concession stand and a merchandise table were inside the building.
“Twelve roosters were euthanized at the SPCA of Texas’ facility in Dallas due to traumatic fighting wounds,” Miller finished.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Making Arkansas safe for pit bull breeders, too
While cockfighters appear to be having their way with the Arkansas state legislature, the Best Friends Animal Society so far has not succeeded in making the state a haven for pit bull breeders and dogfighters by passing a state bill against breed-specific dog legislation that would supersede and undo the pit bull bans already in effect in at least 30 Arkansas communities.
(See No-kill vs. high human body count: Best Friends fights Arkansas pit bull bans.)
Best Friends Animal Society representatives are, however, howling to Little Rock media about the Little Rock City Board having recently suspended adoptions of pit bulls from the city shelter, called Little Rock Animal Village.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Little Rock suspends pit bull adoptions
Little Rock City Board director Joan Adcock on March 26, 2025 indicated to Maya Ellison of THV11.com a day earlier that the victim might have been a person.
Said Adcock, “There was a case where a pit bull had bit someone a year and a half after it had been adopted. It was adopted from the Animal Village.”
But a prepared statement issued by Little Rock City director of communications Aaron Sadler specified that, “Earlier this month, a Pulaski County jury found the City of Little Rock liable for damages related to an incident involving a pit bull that injured another dog.
“That pit bull had been adopted from the Little Rock Animal Village about 16 months prior to this incident.
Merritt & Beth Clifton with Henry the rooster.
“The City of Little Rock will appeal that verdict,” the statement said. “In the meantime, the City is undergoing a review of all its policies regarding adoptions from Little Rock Animal Village of potentially dangerous breeds. During this temporary period, no potentially dangerous breeds will be adoptable.”
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The post “Arkansas House passed pro cockfighting bill,” & it was not an April Fool appeared first on Animals 24-7.
