Animal Wellness Action and the Animal Wilderness Foundation have mounted a campaign opposing breeding and illegal export of fighting cocks from North Carolina to Mexico, Guam, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Animal fighting of any form is prohibited under a federal law enacted in December 2019.  It is illegal to sponsor or exhibit animals in a fighting venture, knowingly attend a fighting venue, knowingly buy, sell, possess, train, transport, deliver or receive an animal for the purposes of animal fighting and to use the U.S. Postal Service to distribute fighting animals or paraphernalia.

The organizations headed by Wayne Pacelle alerted the three U.S. Federal Attorneys General in the state of North Carolina to the existence of an active game fowl industry operating under the umbrella of the North Carolina Game Fowl Breeders Association despite the fact that cock fighting is a felony under North Carolina law.

Apart from the welfare considerations involved, movement of live birds absent compliance with existing health regulations represents a danger to the poultry industry with respect to persistence and transmission of both erosive and catastrophic diseases including AI and END.