Hundreds of roosters were left to starve on a North Carolina farm. No food. No water. Birds that had already been bred for violence, mutilated, and exploited for cockfighting were then simply abandoned when their owner apparently decided to walk away.

The farm is Los Panchos Gamecock Farm in Wilkes County. The owner is Francisco Valadez, who investigators had already connected to cockfighting operations across North Carolina, including a 2024 bust in Granville County where a trailer bearing the farm's logo was photographed at a crime scene. Drone footage and photographs from an ongoing investigation revealed hundreds of fighting roosters staked to individual tents across a sprawling property, one of the largest cockfighting complexes documented in the state.

Now those birds have been abandoned. Each one represents a separate act of cruelty. Each one deserves a separate count.

We are calling on Wilkes County prosecutors to pursue felony animal cruelty charges for the abandonment of these animals, in addition to any cockfighting-related offenses. Hundreds of birds, abandoned without food and water, is not a footnote to this case. It is the case.

But charging one breeder is not enough to stop what is happening across North Carolina. Investigators have documented that cockfighting in this state is organized, not incidental. The North Carolina Gamefowl Breeders Association has been identified as a coordinating network driving fights inside and outside state lines. These operations routinely involve gambling, narcotics trafficking, weapons, and money laundering alongside the animal fighting itself. Cockfighting is not a rural tradition. It is a criminal enterprise.

That is why we are also calling on Congress to pass the bipartisan FIGHT Act, the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking Act, which has been introduced in both the House and Senate. The FIGHT Act would ban gambling on animal fights, prohibit shipping fighting animals through the mail, strengthen criminal forfeiture, and empower citizens to bring court injunctions against fighting rings. It would give law enforcement the federal tools they need to dismantle these networks when they cross state and national borders, which they routinely do.

Local prosecutors can charge Valadez. Congress can close the federal loopholes. Both need to happen.

The roosters left on that farm cannot speak for themselves. They were bred into a system of violence, used until they were no longer useful, and then left to die. The law should have something to say about that.