Cockfights in Loreto

I went to the cockfights in Loreto with Mark, a retired fireman from Anchorage. He was meeting Andrés, a friend and “roosterman” who was not fighting, but promised to show Mark around. Andrés said that he had 40-50 fighting roosters. He wasn't fighting because it was a championship and the biggest fight of the year in Loreto. Some of the teams were local and some roostermen brought birds from as far away as Constitución. There would be 100 fights and each team (a ranch or trainer) entered four birds. The fights began at 3 PM and would run until 3-4 AM the next morning. The top three teams would collect the prize money.

Warning: cockfighting is a blood sport; this post describes and has pictures of violence to animals.
I asked Andrés if I could take pictures. “Yes, cockfighting is one-hundred percent legal in Mexico. It goes back to the Spanish, but the best roosters are from America” meaning the US. Andrés is tall, about 40 and built like a linebacker with short dark hair. He’s wearing black jeans, a black western shirt with white trim and black cowboy boots. He knows a lot of people in the arena, including other roostermen, and talks with them about their birds. During some fights, he calls out to the saltadors (handlers) giving them advice or encouragement. An older saltador who won three fights comes over to shake his hand. The saltador turns, says “hola” and shakes my hand and Mark’s. Saltador comes from the Spanish verb saltar meaning to jump or leap. The saltador’s job is to get his rooster to leap from the beginning of the fight.

Entrance to the arena of the "Breeders Association of Birds of Combat of Loreto"

Cockfighting arena 

The circular arena is inside a stark, concrete-walled compound on Salvaterra near the baseball stadium. Mark and I arrived before 3 PM and there were more than 50 people in the stands, which are sunk into the ground. Andrés brought white plastic chairs so we wouldn’t have to sit on the cement. We sat on the first tier three feet from the cockpit, which has a sand floor and is separated from the stands by a low wall. There’s a white square of sticks in the center where the roosters face off and two longer white sticks on opposite sides near the wall to which the saltadors retreat after they release their roosters. A man with a hose was wetting down the sand floor before the first fight.

Pancho, a professional saltador (handler)

Each rooster has a handler who may not be the owner. Pancho (the nickname for Francisco) is a saltador. He’s in his 50s, rumpled, wearing a blue shirt that’s not tucked in and running shoes. He handled roosters for three of the fights while we were there and his birds won each time. Andres said he was a professional saltador and that he knew all the tricks. After one fight, I saw him collect money from three men in the stands who were probably the winning bird’s owners. The saltadors prepare the roosters for the fight. They tie on a metal spur, which is inserted in a small wooden block attached to a piece of leather that wraps around the rooster’s leg. The device is held in place by a string wrapped around the leather strap. Andrés had a man selling spurs and blocks show us his wares.

Selling spurs for the roosters

Once the roosters have their spurs, they are “warmed up” with a rooster not in the fight. The warm-up is ritualized: the two roosters are held face-to-face and allowed to peck at each other, but not enough to harm them. The handlers pat the roosters around the head and breast to get them aroused. The roosters are put on the ground, held by their handlers and moved toward each other mimicking the start of a fight. Or the handlers hold them by their tails and they run at each other and leap into the air (the fighter’s spur is covered) – all to excite the rooster for the fight.

Spur assembly attached to a rooster's leg

The referee checks both roosters – he wraps the spur assembly of one rooster with red tape and the other with green tape, and wipes their beaks, backs and spurs with a wet swab. Andrés said that was to prevent an owner or handler from poisoning the bird (cheating). “It happens” he said with a sly smile. Once both birds have been swabbed and everyone but the saltadors and the referee have left the ring, the fight begins. The saltadors hold the birds out in front of them at opposite sides of the ring and walk quickly toward each other. The birds see their opponent and are ready to fight. Andrés said that “the fight is won before the roosters get to the ring” meaning that their training is the key to winning. The birds are 2-3 years old and train throughout their lives. [Andres does not keep roosters weighing less than 2 kg (4.4 lbs). He trains his birds by holding their tails and making them run in a sandbox, and by lifting them quickly into the air so they flap their wings as he lowers them.]

The rooster on the left is warmed up before a fight (click to enlarge)

The saltadors back up, the referee gives the signal and the roosters are released. They run at each other and jump into the air kicking at their opponent’s body. Most of the fights that we saw were decided in the first minute or two. Matches last 10 minutes, but only two of the matches went the distance while we were there. Occasionally, one bird gets his spur tangled in the other and the birds are separated. Time is called by the referee and the saltadors wait for his signal. The birds are lined up on opposite sides of the square of sticks by their saltadors. I saw a saltador put his bird’s head in his mouth; Andrés said he "was sucking the blood out of its airways." One rooster was breathing audibly; he said “he’s breathing through his trachea”; his throat had been slit, but he continued to fight.

The referee (black sweatshirt) checks and tapes the metal spur

The fight begins at high speed; the birds jump several feet in the air and kick at each other. A lot of damage is inflicted in the first minute. Only trained eyes can see what’s happening; it looked like leaping bodies and flying feathers as they tear at each other. Between exertion and injuries, the next phase of the fight slows down and is conducted on the ground.

Beginning of the fight

Death is brutal, but not quick. Birds that are mortally wounded continue to fight. Time is called when both birds stop fighting. They are moved back to the square and the referee restarts the fight. There’s a timekeeper and a clock; he calls time when the birds stop fighting. When it looks like a bird is badly injured and about to lose, or when both birds are exhausted and stop fighting, the referee counts to 10; if a bird’s beak touches the ground, it loses the fight. If neither bird’s beak touches the ground, they are restarted at the square, or, if time has run out, the fight is called a draw.

First minute

A man with the broom and dustpan swept up the loose feathers in the cockpit after three or four fights and covered the larger patches of blood. The man with a hose watered the floor when it dried out. Food or drinks weren’t sold in the arena, but snacks could be purchased from pushcart vendors outside the entrance. An old man with gray hair, small and skinny wearing a pork-pie hat was collecting discarded beer cans, crushing them and putting them in a gunny sack. This was going to be a good day for him.

The fight was over in two minutes

A short, older man in a white shirt, chinos and golf cap was taking bets from spectators in the stands. The bookmaker stopped in front of Mark and me, asking the crowd for bets on rojo (red). He questioned us with his eyes and then moved on. He filled out chits and passed them to the bettors when money changed hands. Andrés said the bookmaker tried to even out the bets between red and green. If he got a large bet on verde (green), he went around asking if people wanted to bet on rojo. Andrés said that most of the bets in Loreto were 100-200 pesos ($7-13 U.S.) and only one bookmaker worked the arena. He said that bets in La Paz and Cabo San Lucas could be 1,000 pesos ($67 U.S.) and four or five bookmakers worked those arenas. 

Bookmaker in the white shirt

Bookmaker canvasing the crowd for bets on rojo

Andrés did not bet on the first six fights, but called the winner in each one. “I’m a roosterman, not a gambler. I know birds” he said. He picked winners based on: 1) if the trainer was good and worked his birds hard; 2) if he liked the way the bird looked – in one fight, he was going to bet on a friend’s rooster, but as the birds were warmed up, he saw something in the opponent: “the way he walks, tall; he has confidence” – he bet against his friend and won; and 3) the bird’s heritage – he picked the taller bird in one fight and it won. He said the bird was “half Asil” and that Asils had an advantage at the beginning of a fight – they were stronger and could jump higher and cause more damage with their spurs. Andrés said that his birds have Asil blood. [Asil chickens, one of the oldest breeds, originated in India where they’ve been bred for fighting for over 2,000 years. They’re muscular with a strong beak, thick neck and powerful legs “…with a pugnacious temperament and stubborn refusal to accept defeat” (link) and they’re “…generally very tame and trusting” toward humans (link).] 

Pancho, a professional saltador (left), getting his rooster ready for a fight

Saltador (left) warming up his rooster

Andrés said that “roosters win with two weapons: their spur and their beak” (they peck at their opponent’s head), but tall birds could lose in a pecking fight. “You can’t be sure how a fight will end – both birds got knives.” In one fight when a defeated bird attempted to jump the wall to get out of the cockpit, Andrés said, imitating the bird, “I’m going to get a gun; I’ll be back.”

Beginning of the fight

According to Andrés, he “wins if he doesn’t bet and loses when he bets,” but he bet 100 pesos on each of three of the fights. He bet with his friends and not with the bookmaker because he took 10% off the top. Andrés had one win and two draws. His bird was the clear winner in one of the draws, but both birds stopped fighting at about six minutes and neither put their head on the ground before the 10-minute clock ran out.

Six seconds into the fight

There were two plastic washbasins – one green, one red – full of water on the low wall on either side of the cockpit. The saltador wet his hands to wipe down his bird before the fight and to wash the blood from his hands during the fight. Before the fight, saltadors would take some water in their mouths and blow it into the face of their roosters. It’s against the rules to do that during the fight. In one match, a saltador went to the basin, took some water in his mouth and looked like he was going to blow it into his rooster’s face when the crowd raised their voices in unison at the potentially illegal tactic. The saltador smiled, shrugged his shoulders and swallowed the water. His bird won the fight anyway.

Seven seconds into the fight

The crowd rarely clapped after a fight. They clapped for one bird that dominated the fight from the beginning; it was over in two minutes. The winner pinned his opponent to the floor several times and pecked at his head. When the birds were exhausted and resting on the floor, they were brought back to the square and goaded to fight by the saltadors. The aggressive bird kept attacking his opponent – “that’s an angry bird” said Andrés. The crowd clapped for the winner when the fight was over.

Saltador discussing the outcome of the fight

Mark and I stayed for a dozen fights; by the time we left there were more than 100 people in the stands, but only three gringos and Mark and I were two of them. The third gringo, a friend of Mark’s from Oregon, left after the first fight. The crowd was mostly male; maybe ten percent were women and children. The men ranged in age from boys to the elderly. Several couples that attended the fights were dressed up like they were on dates.

The roosters are kept in cages in the back of the arena before their fights

A young man (purple shirt) carrying a rooster to the arena for a fight

I went to the baño between fights. It was back in a corner along the outside wall. Two doors were labeled “gallos” (roosters) with stick figures of men; I didn’t see a baño for gallinas (hens). I followed a man in his 20s who was carrying a dead rooster across the compound; he dropped it in a blue trash barrel near the baños. Roosters waiting to fight are kept in wire cages around the outside wall, sometimes covered with blankets. They’re transported in tall, narrow cardboard boxes. Mark and I stayed for a couple more fights. The cockpit had the metallic smell of blood when we left our seats, climbed the stairs and walked out to the street. 

Postscript: After the fight, I returned to the house we had rented south of Loreto. The house was quiet. I was agitated and sleep did not come easily. I sat up half the night writing about the experience. It was disturbing to watch. Cockfighting is a blood sport with centuries of tradition in Mexico and the roostermen clearly care about their birds. (How can they put them in the cockpit to fight and die?) It's legal in many countries around the world and, in some places, it's considered more of a cultural activity than a sport. In the U.S., cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Colombia, however, it was practiced legally for two centuries. Louisiana was the last state to outlaw cockfighting in 2007, but it’s legal and practiced in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico and Guam. The Animal Fighting Spectator Prohibition Act, part of the Agriculture Act (Farm Bill) signed by President Obama in 2014, makes it a crime to attend or bring a minor to an organized cockfight or dogfight (link).