Wonders of science surround us, but then there are few which strike us differently. I had one such instance and am driven to pen it down. Cockfight. And you may wonder what about it? We all know that cockfight is a blood sport between two roosters, held in a ring called a cockpit. Two roosters are placed in a pit to fight each other.

The roosters are trained to severely injure and/or kill one another. These birds, which are raised for the purpose of fighting, are tormented to make them aggressive. The combatants, referred to as gamecocks, are specially bred birds, conditioned for increased stamina and strength. They are conditioned, much like professional athletes prior to events or shows. They are also given various legal and illegal drugs such as strychnine, caffeine, amphetamines, and epinephrine to make them more aggressive, increase their endurance and clot the blood that will flow during the fight.[1]

Cockfighting is now illegal throughout all states in the United States, Brazil, Australia and in most of Europe. Wagers are often made on the outcome of the match. While not all fights are to the death, the cocks may endure significant physical trauma. In many other areas around the world, cockfighting is still practised as a mainstream event; in some countries it is government controlled.[2]In many places, cockfights and other animal fights have been outlawed, often based on opposition to gambling or animal cruelty.

Having known this, I came across two very interesting patented inventions, which try to find a middle path between the extremes of a blood-feud and banning the sport. These inventions present non-fatal or non-lethal means of cock-fighting.

The fighting of game fowl, or cocks, has been a sport of long standing. Because the sport has been brutal and frequently resulted in the maiming or killing of one of the cocks, statutes have been enacted to prevent or control the sport of cock fighting in most states in the United States. Cock fighting is still legally practiced in its brutal form in many places in the world. As has been noted in prominent magazines, however, the sport of cock fighting is an intriguing one and should be interesting for spectators if the brutality were eliminated.

The first one, U.S. patent no. 3,771,786 is a ‘nonfatal cock fighting’ means. It is the object of this invention to provide method and apparatus for nonfatal fighting of game fowl characterized by the use of spur substitutes that will affect scoring upon contact of the spur substitutes with the body of an adversary, or opponent; thereby enabling determining the winner without the death of either game fowl.

For those who are better off with the sciences and circuits, the invention provides a method and apparatus for nonfatal fighting of game fowl such as cocks, characterized by replacing spurs, which are frequently fatal, with spur substitutes and connecting the spur substitutes into a suitable circuit to energize an apprising means when one cock makes a scoring contact with the body of his opponent with his spur substitute. Several specific embodiments are described, including the use of miniaturized batteries and transmitters that may be carried by each cock, and including a central scoring means that is responsive to the respective frequencies of the transmitter serving as the apprising means. The spur substitutes are attached to the legs of a cock by a shank encircling band of substantially uniform lateral cross section and of sufficient dimension to necessarily encircle and enclose at least a portion of the natural spur area.

The second is U.S.patent no.: 4,432,545 which presents a ‘non-lethal cock fighting system’.

In this, a pair of sparring gloves or muffs are attached to each leg of a pair of fighting cocks over the natural spur area. The muffs incorporate a member slideably movable along the axis of the natural spur in response to blows struck substantially along this axis. A plurality of switch means are successively actuated in response to movement of the slideable member by various increments of distance, commensurate with the force of the blow. Signals are generated and transmitted to a remote location by transmitters actuated by the switches and attached to the skin at posterior areas below the tail feathers of each bird. The signals are received at the location outside the fighting pit and used to increment counters indicative of the scores of the respective birds, which are weighted according to the force of the blows struck and visually displayed to the spectators.

Though these are not any recent patents, however, little is known about their effectiveness or implementation. But kudos to those human minds who imagined peace in the popularly known ‘blood-sport’!

[1] http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/animal_ent/cock/cockfighting.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight