By Mike Hixenbaugh

Record-Courier staff writer

Some people seek entertainment by watching movies or sporting events. Others, however, would rather starve and torture animals in order to train them for battle -- a battle that oftentimes ends in a gruesome, bloody death.

Sounds crazy, right? It does happen, though, and probably a lot more frequently and closer to home than you realize.

On Aug. 1, Happy Trails Farm and Animal Sanctuary in Ravenna assisted the Lorain County Sheriff's Department by accepting 43 cockfighting roosters into its animal rescue program.

Some of the roosters are vicious, many of them were covered with blood and most of them were scared, said Happy Trails Executive Director Annette Fisher.

Each of the roosters suffered severe burns from having most of their lower feathers shaved. Their back toe spurs had been cut off and replaced with clamps used to secure razor blades. Blades also were fastened in several of the rooster's wings.

"This 'sport,' as they call it, is disgusting," Fisher said, while holding one of the friendlier roosters. Several of the birds, such as one that Fisher named Little Hombre, are still quite violent.

"Yeah, he'd love to pluck your eye out," Fisher said, after the rooster attempted to attack her through a cage. "We won't be able to adopt out some of these roosters."

The most viscous of the birds likely will be euthanized, Fisher said. A painless death would be a relief compared to the world the birds were plucked from.

"When the roosters arrived, several of them held their bloody eyes and heads down onto their chest because their pain was too much to bear to stand upright," Fisher said. "A few were already blind in at least one eye. Most of their combs, once bright red and the crowing glory of a rooster, had been cut off flat against their heads. All of them were extremely thin, emaciated, hungry and fearful."

The birds had reason to be afraid. They were a part of the continually growing underground world of cockfighting, according to reports from the Humane Society of the United States.

By Fisher's estimates, the Lorain County bust is just the tip of the iceberg.

"The sad thing is this happens right here in Portage County, just no one has been busted yet," Fisher said. "I hear people who are suspicious of it all the time."

Animal rights groups have been trying to end trained-animal fighting for decades. Fisher believes its now time for everyone to do their part.

"Would you choose to live next to a person who is so void of emotion and compassion that they can joke with friends while they horrifically cut the combs off the top of a rooster's head so that the other roosters can't grab them, or laugh while they cut off the chicken's spurs on the backs of their legs?" Fisher said. "Animal abuse is the No. 1 red flag that pre-empts domestic violence."

According to a recent study conducted at Northeastern University in Boston, animal abusers are five times more likely to commit violent crimes against people and four times more likely to commit property crimes.

When the Lorain County Sheriff's Office responded to a complaint in Sheffield Township, they stumbled across about 40 men, many of them drunk, yelling and cheering while standing around a fighting ring.

Surrounding them were cages full of roosters -- all trained to kill.

The officers found nearly 50 birds, most of which were underweight and uncared for, Lorain County Sheriff Phil Stammitti said. Three of the roosters were "covered in blood and dying," and dead chicken parts littered the area, the police report said.

About 40 birds were rescued, while more than 200 other birds remained on the property.

The property owner, Felix A. Rosario, 83, was charged with animal cruelty, a misdemeanor good for no more than 90 days in jail. If the punishment seems small, that's because Ohio is one of only 17 states where cockfighting isn't a felony.

The Humane Society of the U.S. hopes to change that.

"Cockfighting is quite common in states where the penalties are low," said John Goodwin, manager of animal fighting issues with HHUS. "In states where the penalty doesn't even come close to offsetting the potential gambling gains, there's more animal fighting. Ohio has one of the weakest cockfighting laws in the nation."

Anyone interested in volunteering or contributing to Happy Trails Farm should contact Fisher at (330) 296-5914. Donations can be made at www.happytrailsfarm.org.

"We're doing everything we can to help these roosters," Fisher said. "We're giving them antibiotics and trying to care for them, but we run on volunteers. We can really use some help to prepare these birds for adoption.

"Cockfighting is a horrible thing," Fisher added. "But it's just going to keep on happening until people step up and say, 'We don't want to take this anymore.' I hope that happens."