© John McCuskerHollie Gomill, Edward Bosch and Kerry Backsen of the Louisiana SPCA remove two to hundreds of fighting roosters from a warehouse in New Orleans East Wednesday, August 14, 2013.
A woman called the Louisiana SPCA this weekend, declined to give her name and reported some 50 cockfighting roosters in a neighbor's back lawn. But when investigators arrived at the home Wednesday morning, they found much more than they bargained for.
For hours, all day, they rescued more than 700 birds in what the organization describes at the most sprawling and sophisticated illegal breeding operation they've encountered in over a century.
They discovered a warehouse full of pens used to cage the birds next to the home in the 14000 block of Chef Menteur Highway. In the home's backyard, they found another 150 or so makeshift cages, fashioned from 55-gallon drums, filled with roosters. Hundreds more ran free, hiding from rescuers in the surrounding mud and banana trees.
But the biggest, most beautiful birds, worth thousands on the black market, were kept in spacious corrals in a climate-controlled shed, with heaters and egg incubators, mating charts and an automated watering system.
Each rooster was meticulously bred for the ancient blood sport, which pits roosters with knives strapped to their legs against each other in a fight to the death.
The homeowner, 47-year-old Trinh Tran, was booked Wednesday afternoon on cockfighting and animal cruelty charges.
Comment: Why have police in America turned into such ruthless thugs?