United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150, Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
Phone: 757-678-7875 • FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org • info@upc-online.org

October 23, 2019

Monterey County Board of Supervisors:

We are informed that Monterey County harbors illegal rooster operations amounting to an estimated one thousand in the county. Legally, the amassing of roosters on individual properties violates the county’s five rooster limit. On their recent visit to Monterey County, investigators with the organization SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness) documented thirty properties violating the law.

Please use your authority to eliminate these illegal rooster operations and give Animal Control the resources they need to accomplish this mission within the scope of the ordinance that went into effect five years ago and that languishes without action. It is time to take action.

Roosters suffer in being forced to fight one another in staged fights preceded by all kinds of drugs and other punishments that traumatize them to behave in ways they do not behave under wild or feral conditions. Cockfighting and game fowl breeding operations spread avian influenza within the flocks and to birds in poultry and egg operations and to wild-living birds. We’ve rehabilitated many roosters from cockfighting operations in the past 30 years and can testify to the fact that their natural behavior is distorted and pathologized by cockfighters.

Please take the action you are authorized to take and eliminate the illegal rooster operations in Monterey County. Please provide the resources needed to achieve this goal.

We look forward to your response and to sharing it with our members and others.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Karen Davis, PhD, President

 

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• Cockfighting