Fifty Against Fighting

© The HSUS

Last year, Louisiana and New Mexico passed HSUS-backed bills to outlaw cockfighting—the final two states to adopt such bans. Now, we've reached another milestone in our efforts against animal fighting. Yesterday, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed legislation to make dogfighting a felony there (the legislation also makes cockfighting a felony). With Freudenthal's action, all 50 states now have felony-level penalties for dogfighting crimes.

The HSUS has since its founding focused on the horrors of dogfighting. We are still working to strengthen anti-dogfighting laws, enforce these laws, raise awareness, and ward young people especially away from participating in these vicious forms of animal cruelty.

But yesterday's action in Cheyenne was a marker for movement. Increasingly, the law is on our side, and the people who abuse animals are on the run and operating only in the shadows.