ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, SportsA new ad attacks a brutal blood sport

It's a brutal blood sport pitting animals against each other for profit. Now, an ad backed by churches, humane societies and sheriffs is taking aim at the country's weakest cockfighting law.

Long before he started busting cockfighting rings, Sheriff Mike Hale had his first encounter with the sport on the way to the lake as a child.

"These thugs came out of the woods to stop my family and me. It was a very ugly situation. Pt was very bullish," said Hale.

Hale now knows the illegal activity leads to others.

"We found the spurs you've seen at a drug raid, so we know there is a nexus, connection with drug activity," he said.

But proponents of the tougher cockfighting bill says it's about more than that.

A new PSA put together by the Humane Society of the United States and the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics commissioner calls cockfighting a "pornography of violence."

"I can think of no more frivolous argument for causing pain that watching two animals try to claw themselves to death," said Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Right now, the maximum penalty for cockfighting is fifty dollars. That's half of what drivers would pay in Birmingham and other cities if caught texting while driving.

"This weak law has become a magnet that attracts people from states, like Georgia and Florida, states were cockfighting is a felony, brings them here so they can commit the crime here," said John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States.

Hale believes that would change if the bill is passed changing the fine to six thousand dollars.

"When they put the games together, I guarantee they don't want the six thousand to go out like that. They're going to go to the low water, which is a state with a low fine," he said.

The Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association is opposing the bill, which could be headed to the Senate floor next week.