Colorado sheriff’s office seizes 39 birds in illegal cockfighting operation

Adams County Sheriff’s Department deputies on Friday seized dozens of birds being trained for an illegal cockfighting operation.

The property owner of where the animals were found was arrested on felony animal cruelty charges, according to the sheriff's office.

In a small shack on a 35-acre property near 4300 Hudson Road in Watkins, several miles south of Denver International Airport, Adams County deputies found 39 total birds, 32 of them roosters, being kept to compete in an illegal cockfighting operation, sheriff's office officials confirmed Monday.

The location is near 4300 Hudson Road in Watkins. Authorities arrested property owner Jesus Orozco, 34, on suspicion of animal fighting and aggravated cruelty to animals — felony charges under Colorado law.

Adams County Sheriff's spokesperson Adam Sherman said deputies believe the birds were “modified” under the feet and neck, with some of the birds reportedly injured and bleeding upon being discovered.

Known as a underground operation, cockfighting consists of illegally trafficked animals kept to fight against each other as a form of illegal betting.

“With so many birds, we definitely take it seriously. It won’t be tolerated. If you see it, report it,” Sherman said.

Animal activist groups believe the birds were found where the cockfighting took place.

Activist groups Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy officials claimed illegal cockfighting is “prevalent,” and that animal cruelty laws need to be enforced more.

“We applaud the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for taking action to break up this cockfighting event,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, in a news release. “Sheriffs and police can only act when they have credible information about ongoing animal cruelty crimes.”

The activist groups claim where deputies found the 39 birds were where “fighting almost certainly occurred,” activists said.

“Cockfighters routinely flout the law and take their chances with their staged fights and the trafficking of fighting animals,” activists said in the news release. “The Colorado arrest comes as Congress considers taking up the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act to address the threat that animal fighting poses to community safety, agriculture, and animal well-being.”

Each year, millions of fighting animals are trafficked every year in the United States. Hundreds of thousands are smuggled in from Mexico, which, potentially infected with avian flu, “is a threat to production agriculture for broiler birds and laying hens,” according to Animal Wellness Action officials.

Eric Sakach, a law enforcement specialist with Animal Wellness Action, alleged the busted Watkins location as being “consistent with a cockfighting operation,” he said.

“The gamecocks I saw were dubbed and trimmed and they were being housed in a manner that is consistent with numerous other cockfighting operations I have observed,” Sakach said in the release. “The imbalanced ratio of roosters to hens, with the roosters exhibiting injuries consistent with having been fought, tell us all we need to know.”