It was late November, one week before the start of the illicit cockfighting season, when thousands gathered inside the city of Cleveland’s expo arena for a game fowl festival.
While cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states, breeding aggressive strains of roosters for show and selling them at festivals is not – and the Nov. 22 El Gallo Show Worldwide was performing a very public dance around that legal loophole.
A vendor near the arena’s entrance was selling ornate sheaths to store knives that cockfighters strap to roosters’ legs during battles to the death. But Hector Hernandez of Houston said his products were “for collecting,” not fighting.
Sheaths for cockfighting knives were on sale at the El Gallo Show in Cleveland, Texas, on Nov. 22, 2025. Vendor Hector Hernandez said they were for collecting, not fighting.
Tracey McManus / Staff
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Next to vitamins, supplements and wound care ointments, a table displayed rooster hand puppets, which cruelty investigators say are telltale training tools to hone birds’ aggression.
El Gallo Show founder Katalina Carvente had a more innocent explanation. These puppets, she said, are for guiding roosters to jump on platforms in husbandry exhibitions across the country.
A hand puppet typically used for training in cockfighting was for sale at El Gallo Show Worldwide. But founder Katalina Carvente said these items were for guiding roosters in husbandry exhibitions.
Tracey McManus / Staff
“These shows produce massive amounts of money throughout the U.S. and let our children and new generations continue to keep these bloodlines alive without having anything to do with cockfighting,” Carvente said, a multi-colored rooster tattooed inside her left forearm and a handgun holstered on her right hip.
Illegal cockfighting persists in rural pockets and hidden battle pits in cities across the nation, but the breeding industry thrives out in the open – a distinction without a difference to animal welfare advocates and law enforcement who say there is no reason for the millions of roosters selectively bred for aggression in the U.S. each year for anything but fighting.
Bills to strengthen cockfighting laws this year have died or stalled amid the game fowl industry that operates under the banner of preserving bloodlines and tradition. That said, breeders and customers at El Gallo Show openly acknowledged to The Dallas Morning News the offspring of some birds sold at the event were destined for places such as Mexico and the Philippines where cockfighting is legal – underscoring how American breeders are fueling the multi-billion dollar international cockfighting industry in plain sight.
“It’s kind of like trying to claim they’re growing marijuana for decorative purposes: everybody knows what’s going on,” said Kevin Chambers, Oklahoma director of Animal Wellness Action, who has investigated cockfighting for 40 years.
Katalina Carvente, founder of El Gallo Show Worldwide, shows her rooster tattoo at the Nov. 22, 2025 event.
Tracey McManus / Staff
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As music blasted over speakers, and smoke rose from barbecues under tents near the arena, a line of customers waited to take a photo with breeder Dennis Oakley.
Oakley traveled from Florence, Alabama, for El Gallo Show to set up cages with at least two dozen Kelsos he’s bred for 51 years. He said he made his name in the industry from 1987 to 2007 when he was “all over the world fighting these chickens.” That was before Louisiana became the last state to ban the blood sport in 2008.
Now Oakley said he only breeds for his love of game fowl — “I don’t fight” — but passionately supports legalizing the “born tradition.”
Some birds sold for a few hundred dollars, but one special Kelso with a rainbow of red, orange and black feathers was posted at $2,500.
“His offspring is winning everywhere in the whole world,” Oakley said, explaining the price.
Dennis Oakley of Florence, Alabama, sells roosters at El Gallo Show in Cleveland, Texas. He confirmed the offspring of at least one of his birds were winning fights all over the world.
Tracey McManus / Staff
Paulo Cagol, 31, purchased a Grey from Oakley for $300 and began lowering the rooster into a cardboard box.
“Its my favorite bloodline,” he said.
Cagol said the rooster was going back to his home in central Texas as breeding stock, but he planned to send the bird’s offspring to his cockfighting customers in the Philippines. He declined to say how he’d get them overseas.
It’s a federal crime in the United States to transport animals for the purpose of fighting but welfare advocates estimate there are tens of thousands of chickens shipped through commercial airlines and the U.S. mail every year to battle pits overseas.
Cockfighters often avoid legal trouble by declaring the birds are for breeding. Korean Air spokesperson Diane Yang previously told The News the airline has no way to confirm the fate of birds transported by the airline.
A bipartisan sponsored bill pending in Congress, the FIGHT Act, would ban the shipment of mature roosters through the U.S. mail for any reason — a critical measure, advocates say, to slow the pipeline from American breeders to battle pits in Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere under the pretense of breeding stock.
“They’re trying to sow confusion and we want to lift that confusion and give law enforcement easier tools to act upon,” said Animal Wellness Action founder Wayne Pacelle.
Boxes of roosters await their handlers at El Gallo Show Worldwide in Cleveland, Texas, on Nov. 22, 2025.
Tracey McManus / Staff
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As a game fowl show operator and social media influencer, Carvente visits farms across the country and posts photos and videos of the operations.
From Texas to Alabama to Kentucky, farms she highlights have dozens or hundreds of roosters penned one-by-one in outdoor wire cages or tethered by their legs to individual barrels used as shelters.
Bred selectively for aggression, these birds cannot be housed communally and are not the strains used in the egg or meat industry. Carvente said the point is to keep bloodlines alive for future generations to show.
“My roosters eat better than I do,” Carvente said.
Leighann Lassiter, director of animal cruelty policy for Humane World for Animals, said such setups are a dead giveaway. Husbandry shows alone, she said, cannot explain the tens of millions of roosters bred each year in the U.S.
“If you saw 100 pit bulls on tethers in a yard,” Lassiter said, “you would not assume that those are dogs being raised for show.”
Visitors browse vendors at El Gallo Show Worldwide on Nov. 22, 2025.
Tracey McManus / Staff
The trouble, she said, is law enforcement has to prove intent to prosecute people raising birds for fighting – and while breeding occurs in the open, fighting rings run underground and international transport has the cover of “breeding stock.”
This year Humane World for Animals backed a bill in the California State Assembly that would prohibit the possession of more than 25 roosters housed individually on one property.
A similar bill stalled last year amid intense pushback, but Lassiter said it is common sense regulation to put a stop to breeders fueling the international cockfighting industry.
Other legislation to crack down in Texas has recently stalled. The act of causing birds to fight is a felony in the state, but it’s a misdemeanor to attend fights, allow property to be used for battles and possess knives or gaffes for fighting – hardly a deterrent, advocates say.
Visitors browse hats, shirts and roosters for sale at El Gallo Show Worldwide in Cleveland Texas on Nov. 22, 2025.
Tracey McManus / Staff
Thanksgiving week kicked off cockfighting season as roosters stop molting feathers and are in peak condition. News of busts around the state immediately made headlines that weekend: a Thanksgiving Day raid in Johnson County; a bust in rural Collin County; a mid-day sting at a Houston barbershop – more than 100 birds recovered between them.
This year the Texas Humane Legislation Network backed a bill to make it a felony to own or train a bird with the intent to fight or to allow property be used for fighting. It died in committee.
Shelby Bobosky, an attorney and executive director of the network, said after being quoted in a news article earlier this year about the bill, she received “one of the scariest death threats I’ve ever seen.”
“There is significant opposition to this bill in terms of cockfighters … really throughout the U.S.,” Bobosky said, “because they do not want any more bills and laws filed that make it more difficult for them to cockfight.”
Breeding for international transport has direct links to illegal fighting in the U.S. since bloodlines have to be battle tested for customers, said Brian Hawthorne, Chambers County sheriff and president of the Sheriff’s Association of Texas.
“People in the Philippines and Mexico, they don’t want a breeder’s bird that isn’t already winning fights in Texas or in New Mexico or in Louisiana,” Hawthorne said. “ So if you shut down the transport of it then it also slows fighting in our own states.”
Customers browse roosters and a cockfighting painting for sale at El Gallo Show Worldwide in Cleveland, Texas, on Nov. 22, 2025.
Tracey McManus / Staff
Over his 40 years in law enforcement Hawthorne has seen cockfighting only grow across the state. Beyond the cruelty – birds pitted against each other with sharp knives fighting to the death and left to bleed out in trash piles — Hawthorne said the blood sport has other ills.
Many cockfighting busts handled by sheriffs in the state, he said, lead investigators to human trafficking victims, drugs, guns and other violence.
When Dallas Police responded to a shooting between Michoacan cartel members on Rylie Road in 2023, they discovered firearms and a cockfighting operation with nearly 3,000 roosters, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jessica Trevizo previously said. A suspect told officers they were sold for $500 to $2,500, according to the police report, and “commonly sold in Mexico.”
“It is organized crime,” Hawthorne said.
Like most roosters recovered in busts, the Rylie Road birds were euthanized due to the difficulty in finding rescues to accommodate scores of birds that must be housed individually.
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Bobby Jones, a game fowl breeder outside of Waco, is proud American roosters are coveted across the world. There are breeders like him who have for decades honed bloodlines, such as his line of Greys and Reds that haven’t had new genes introduced since the 1970s.
Although Jones advocates for legalization of cockfighting, he said he hasn’t been to a battle pit in more than two decades.
Most of the game fowl bred on his farm each year go to the Philippines, where more than $13 billion is wagered on the blood sport each year, Bloomberg reported. But before transport, Jones requires buyers to sign a form stating his transactions are “not for illegal purposes.”
“In the Philippines I’m a celebrity,” Jones said. “Here in the U.S. I’m a potential criminal.”
Angelina Lopez, 9, center, poses with a chicken she won in a raffle at El Gallo Show Worldwide. Her father, Jesus Lopez, said he wants to teach his daughter the responsibility of owning an animal.
Tracey McManus / Staff
The Texas Gamefowl Breeders Association also advocates for the decriminalization of cockfighting. Rep. Eddie Morales, D-Eagle Pass, filed a bill this session backed by the association to reduce penalties for the blood sport, but it failed to receive a hearing. Morales did not respond to a phone call or email requesting comment.
“There’s no such thing as animal cruelty in the constitution,” association vice president Steve Hinds reasoned.
Rationales from breeders often go that way – positions based in the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the tradition of cockfighting that crosses continents and millennia.
Texas Gamefowl Breeders Association vice president Steve Hinds, right, works on a raffle with El Gallo Show founder Katalina Carvente, left.
Tracey McManus / Staff
“In chapter 1 of Genesis verse 26 God gave man dominion over animals, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea,” Jones said, “and the government does not have the authority to circumvent or supersede God’s law.”
Near Jones’ setup at El Gallo Show, David Vicknair of Louisiana had a table for his Nite Owl Supplies business. Customers buying his vitamins and supplements, he said, use them to keep the birds in their healthiest shape.
His website sells more, such as testosterone replacements with a label instructing users to give the pills to birds “days before contest.”
“People aren’t breeding them and raising them for cockfighting anymore,” Vicknair said. “It’s to preserve the gamefowl itself because if we stop raising these chickens, it’s going to become an extinct species.”
On his table sat other items for sale, including what he called “collectors items” — booklets with rules for cockfights.
A cockfighting rule book for sale at El Gallo Show Worldwide on Nov. 22, 2025. Vendor David Vicknair said the booklets were collectors items.
Tracey McManus / Staff