Home » Health » Feathers, Blood and Money > The New Detective

Feathers, Blood and Money > The New Detective

Aas quietly as possible, the gendarmes progress along the Durance, trying not to make the sandy soil creak under their … According to their information, here, in Pertuis, in the Vaucluse, a pine forest would shelter a cannabis plantation. Is the pipe correct? Will they surprise a band of criminals? A policeman crosses a thicket and utters a cry of triumph: in front of him are lined up a dozen dark green plants, with serrated leaves. There will be a total of 5,500 vines, on about fifteen plots irrigated by water from the river. Total value, 4 million euros at a glance. A very nice catch.

An unexpected discovery

All findings and formalities completed, the soldiers prepare to turn back when they make an unexpected discovery. A little further, under the pines, a strange round building looms. Made of wooden pallets, covered with tarpaulins, it seems to be neither a shelter for traffickers nor a drug processing workshop. No window. No movement. No noise. In the July heat, construction gives off an ominous impression. Inside, surprise: it looks like an arena. It’s not huge, but there are several rows of makeshift stands made of pallets, and two caravans converted into bars, on the sides. In the center, under a neon railing, a circle of red and black carpet, stained with spatters of blackened blood. What fights to the death are organized here? The answer lies in a series of thirty numbered cages where unfortunate animals languish. Roosters.

Cockfighting, it is said, was born in ancient Greece before spreading all over the planet, from Indonesia to Belgium, from Madagascar to Syria. Until the age of their full physical vigor – 15 months – the future champions, carefully selected, are entitled to all the attention. We watch their growth, we feed them with the best grains, the meatiest worms. The “cocker” checks that their spread fingers provide them with good support, that their clear song reveals easy breathing. Sometimes he even bathes and massages them, like wrestlers! But when the birds reach the necessary size, the atmosphere changes: they are equipped with a spur, a steel point attached to the back of the leg, before being thrown against their rivals in the “pitt”, the enclosure where all shots are allowed. The fight lasts six minutes. The winner is the survivor, or the last one standing. All this is the subject of significant bets, large sums are at stake, so that some breeders do not hesitate to dope their fighter or to equip him, against the regulations, with specially formidable lugs, sharp as razors. . To the sadistic delight of bloodthirsty viewers.

A 1964 law banned cockfighting in France

The French parliament was moved by this cruelty to animals. A law of July 8, 1964 prohibited cockfighting in France, except in territories where it is part of local traditions – Réunion, Guyana, Antilles, Polynesia, or even Nord-Pas-de-Calais… But forbidden to create new “gallodromes”, as these arenas for roosters are called. Result: in Reunion, for example, there are only five for 860,000 inhabitants! Very insufficient to satisfy enthusiasts. From where, it was fatal, the appearance, a little everywhere in France, of clandestine arenas.

In June 2013, in Toulouse, a gendarmerie helicopter spotted an undeclared construction of 100 m2 in a gypsy camp. The municipal police officers invest the places, believing to find there a garage where one disassembles stolen cars… Instead, they discover a boxing ring, three rows of pallets as bleachers and thirteen roosters still equipped with slender spurs. The place was air-conditioned and equipped with a home-made treadmill, cobbled together with a washing machine motor that brought the fighters to the center of the pitt! An account book seized on site shows that some roosters can sell for up to 1,500 euros each.

Roadside arenas

In 2017, a scenario comparable to Gauriaguet, in Gironde. This time, it’s a neighbor who gives the alert. Injured roosters escape from a house under construction to come and die in his garden! These poor beasts do not carry the regulation studs but rather sharp blades, designed to kill… The gendarmes of the company of Bouliac organize a hideout around the construction site. They note that on certain dates motorists from Haute-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne or Haute-Vienne park on the side of the road, where an individual on a scooter welcomes them. A search is organized in the house under construction: inside there is a stack of wire cages still housing animals. The investigation reveals that the fights were announced on WhatsApp, that the entry fee was set at 15 euros and that five or six birds died at each session. The owner of the premises, a 44-year-old craftsman, and his accomplice, a 35-year-old man, were arrested. Both lay the blame on a mysterious friend who supposedly organized everything, a certain “Little Pants”… Before the criminal court, the second dares to claim that the roosters were not mistreated.

– A little tired from training, that’s all.

The court, not convinced, imposed a fine of 5,000 euros on each of the offenders.

Dozens of visitors to a market gardener

On January 19, 2019, in Trans-sur-Erdre, in Loire-Atlantique, it was the turn of a cattle farmer to be surprised. His village, lost between Nantes and Chateaubriand, does not have 1,000 inhabitants. How is it then that his neighbour, a market gardener of Laotian origin, frequently receives dozens of visitors? Visitors who, judging by their plates, come from afar to see it… The gendarmes decide to investigate. Curiously, the market gardener’s largest greenhouse is covered. As if he wanted to protect his plants from the sun. Or looks! Inside, the gendarmes arrested about twenty spectators, including children. The pitt is still strewn with bloody feathers.

It is again Laotians who hold the farm where the SPA intervenes, on January 13, in Meynes, south of Nîmes. The organization has heard that dogs would be mistreated there… Its volunteers are accompanied by the gendarmerie, to check. At the place indicated, route de Redessan, there are indeed two dogs in bad shape. And also, in an agricultural greenhouse, two illegal gallodromes! Two enclosures of green mesh near which thirteen roosters, mutilated, await the next fight in individual cages.

— This is a first for us, admits a dismayed volunteer.

Real “animal abuse”

It is said that General de Gaulle had an indulgence for cockfighting:

– Anyway, the roosters, we always end up eating them. When I have one on my plate, no matter how it died…

Justice today is more severe. In this type of case, in addition to the organization of clandestine bets, it retains more and more often the qualification of “serious abuse or acts of cruelty towards animals”. Fight organizers who were caught last week in Meynes face three years in prison and a 45,000 euro fine, penalties increased to five years and 75,000 euros if it is proven that roosters died in their arena.

An investigation by Christophe Guerra

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.