Why is the JB Pritzker administration ignoring cockfighting & steer-tailing?

Illinois governor & Democratic presidential hopeful Pritzker led 71 Illinois high mucky-mucks on a trade mission to Mexico in April 2025,  but is not known to have sent even one humane investigator to a “charreada”

SPRINGFIELD,  Illinois––Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker,  courting Mexican investment in Illinois industry to offset the recent loss of companies including Caterpillar,  Citadel,  Boeing,  Tyson Foods, Guggenheim Partners,  and TTX railcar leasing,  seems to be hanging his hopes of winning the 2028 Democratic nomination to run for U.S. president on the theory that more Americans will appreciate his opposition to current president Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation of Mexican illegal immigrants than will hold Pritzker accountable for his appointees and political allies’ non-enforcement of the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act.

No known Illinois cockfighting busts in 16 years

Non-enforcement of the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act against cockfighting and charreada,  in particular,  two  favorite recreational pastimes of Mexican immigrants,  has become especially conspicuous through the ongoing investigative work of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness,  previously best known for exposing U.S.-style rodeo abuses and cockfighting by Anglos in the Appalachians,  Oklahoma,  and Texas.

The last big cockfighting bust in Illinois appears to have been in 2009,  a decade before Pritzker took office as governor.

The steer-tailing event in charreada,  called cola,  in which running steers are repeatedly slammed to the ground by mounted charros,  using the combination of a kick with a jerk of the steers’ tails,  has never been prosecuted in Illinois from the state level––or anywhere else,  for that matter,  but Illinois appears to be the hub of U.S. cola competition,  usually decoupled from all nine of the other standard charreada events.

What happens at a charreada?

Steers by the dozen every weekend during the six-month charreada season frequently suffer “degloving,”  meaning that the skin and hair is ripped from their tail bones;  broken bones and horns;  head and neck injuries;  and are driven through the chutes with electric prods to be chased and thrown down again and again,  so long as they can still stand up.

The horses,  meanwhile,  are frequently flogged in a manner not permitted in any other form of equestrian competition:  not horse racing,  nor even in U.S.-style rodeo,  as violent toward animals as that is.

Showing Animals Respect & Kindness has for three years videotaped all the above abuses at cola competition after cola competition,  again and again appealing to law enforcement and regulatory bodies at every level to invoke the plain language of the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act to stop it:

“No person or owner may beat,  cruelly treat,  torment,  starve,  overwork or otherwise abuse any animal.”

But neither the Illinois Department of Agriculture,  directed since 2020 by Pritzker appointee Jerry Costello II,  nor Boone County and Ogle County state’s attorneys Karla Maville and Mike Rock,  both Republicans,  have prosecuted the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act against cola,  in particular,  no matter how badly the steers have been injured.

What SHARK did over the Memorial Day weekend

The Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK] drone team over the Memorial Day weekend monitored four steer-tailing competitions,  from Rochelle,  in Ogle County,  Illinois,  120 miles east to Lowell,  in Lake County,  Indiana.

A fifth scheduled steer-tailing competition,  to have been held in Boone County,  Illinois,  was cancelled,  Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7,  after SHARK campaign director Jodie Wiederkehr persuaded a Poplar Grove veterinarian to withdraw from monitoring the event,  as required by Boone County ordinance.

Boone County officials have previously been embarrassed when Showing Animals Respect & Kindness demonstrated that one “veterinarian” supposed to have monitored a steer-tailing competition was actually just a vet tech,  and when veterinarians said to have been present were not.

Animal control officer left early

Earlier in the Memorial Day weekend,  Wiederkehr emailed on May 25,  2025,  “Our team is currently out in Ogle County at 16989 Ritchie Road in Rochelle,  Illinois,”  an estate called Rancho La Esperanza,  which has been a county-licensed charreada facility since 2012.

“We have been to board meetings,  made phone calls, and made videos about the horrific abuse that happened at the last event in Rochelle on April 19,”  Wiederkehr said.

“An animal control officer [who attended the event and departed early] rarely left her vehicle,  except to direct traffic,  one horse and three steers had their legs shattered,  three more steers had their tails ripped off their bodies,  two more were lamed,  and there were multiple head injuries,  bloody horns, and open wounds.

“No veterinarians were present”

“No veterinarians were present,  so none of these animals received veterinary care or pain relief,  and all of this violates Illinois’ Humane Care for Animals Act,”  Wiederkehr alleged.

The Ogle County Sheriff’s Office told the SHARK team that complaints would be accepted only from eyewitnesses,  Wiederkehr continued,  “so Steve Hindi,  while in the middle of the operation,”  specifically while flying drones with mounted cameras,  “called the police himself,  only to be put on hold indefinitely.”

All of the injured steers,  Wiederkehr said,  were “put back into the lineup to be run and abused again.”

“SHARK advocates say they’ve monitored Rochelle’s Rancho La Esperanza for years,”  reported Nathaniel Langley on May 13,  2025,  for WIFR television in Rockford,  Illinois.

“The nonprofit‘s footage shows cattle wobbling, limping and holding and wiggling snapped legs following the steer tailing,”  Langley affirmed.

Hindi:  “If I come from Norway,  I don’t get to kill whales off our coast”

“In a state that brags about having one of the best humane laws in the country, this is brutality on a level that wouldn’t be accepted in many third-world countries,”  Steve Hindi told Langley.

Noting that a bill to ban steer-tailing,  SB 45,  has been introduced in the Illinois state assembly,  Ogle County State’s Attorney Mike Rock “pushed back against SHARK’s claims of animal abuse,”  Langley narrated.

“The fact that there’s a specific law being proposed to outlaw this specific act tells you the legislature does not believe that their laws otherwise cover it,”  argued Rock.

Ogle County chair Bruce Larson,  a Republican,  said that the county could revoke the charreada permit issued in 2012 only for violations of provisions concerning noise and times of operation.

“When asked if cultural heritage should be considered in the steer tailing debate,”  Langley finished,  Hindi responded,  “If I come from Norway,  I don’t get to kill whales off our coast.”

Charles VanHorn of Superhits 935 radio in Rochelle,  Illinois,  on May 21, 2025 mentioned that “The Ogle County Board has tabled a resolution that would support state legislation banning steer tailing,”  adding that,  “The board’s ethics committee recommended that special use permits for rodeo events be reviewed by zoning officials in the future.”

No cockfighting busts in Illinois,  but big bust in Wisconsin

Meanwhile in Wisconsin,  neighboring Illinois,  the Clark County Sheriff’s Office on May 22,  2025 “seized more than 160 roosters and hens from a rural farm near Dorchester,”   WIZM radio news reported from La Crosse.

“The sheriff’s office was assisted by Humane World for Animals,  formerly the Humane Society of the United States,”  the WIZM staff report continued.

“Law enforcement served a search and seizure warrant around 9 a.m. that morning.  When they arrived,  they found the birds in dire condition. A news release from Humane World for Animals said that most had no access to food or water,”  WIZM continued.

“Many of the birds were missing toes. In one case, a bird was missing both feet, the release stated.   They also found evidence of a practice called dubbing,  where the wattles and combs of roosters get cut off,”  purportedly “to mitigate blood loss during cockfights,”  the Humane World for Animals statement said.

“Dead chicks were discovered across the property,”  along with cockfighting paraphernalia,  WIZM added.

“Knives & machetes” at cockfight

The biggest cockfight busted between Cinco de Mayo and Labor Day 2025,  however,  was discovered in southwest Miami-Dade County on May 16,  2025,  by sheriff’s deputies responding to a call about “a fight involving “knives and machetes,”  Laura Rodriguez reported for NBC6.

“Once [the deputies] were at the scene,”  Rodriguez detailed,  “the person who called authorities” claimed to have witnessed multiple people who were “not only fighting but also engaged in illegal game fowl fighting,”  according to arrest reports.

Forty-two people,  all with Hispanic surnames,  “were arrested on charges of fighting or baiting animals and resisting arrest without violence,”  Rodriguez continued.

Seventy-two roosters and $39,000 in cash were impounded at the scene.

Ethnicity of cockfighters

Data pertaining to 773 arrestees for alleged cockfighting activity,  logged from law enforcement reports and news accounts by ANIMALS 24-7,  tabulated in November 2024,  indicated that 63% of alleged cockfighters arrested in recent years have had Spanish surnames.

The surnames indicated origins primarily from Mexico,  secondarily from Puerto Rico,  the Philippines,  Cuba,  and the Dominican Republic.

Also occasionally arrested for alleged cockfighting were immigrants from El Salvador,  Guatemala,  Colombia,  Venezuela,  and other points south.

About 4% of alleged cockfighters arrested in recent years have had Asian surnames,  mostly of Thai,  Indonesian,  and Vietnamese origin.

The remaining 33% were Anglos,  nabbed chiefly in the Appalachian states,  Oklahoma,  and Texas––where Showing Animals Respect & Kindness investigations have been concentrated.

Please donate to support our work:

More related posts: