UPC Protesters Attack Crow-Magnon Crabfeast

UPC successfully picketed the annual Maryland Gamefowl Breeders Association Crabfeast on August 13, in Baltimore. UPC protest leader Julie Beckham told The Baltimore Sun (Aug. 14, 1995, 1B-2B) that while cockfighting is illegal in MD, "There's no question they're breeding roosters to be used in cockfighting. According to The Sun, "She offered as her evidence a photocopy of a nationally distributed cockfighting publication known as Grit and Steel, in which yesterday's crab feast ... was announced near an advertisement for 'gaffs,' long sharp blades that are attached to roosters' spurs during cockfights."

Beckham told The Sun, "Cockfighters would have you believe that [fighting] is the natural behavior of roosters. But studies of roosters in the wild ... say that they never show the type of aggression you see in cockfighting rings."

The Sun article was reprinted in the November 1995 issue of Grit and Steel. The article concluded with Beckham's comment, "These groups and these newsletters tend to romanticize what happens. There's nothing romantic about it." Protesters from Protect Animal Life, Delaware Animal Rescue, Maryland Animal Advocates, and Maryland Forum for Animals joined UPC in telling the cockamaniacs to go croak.