Yucatan Clinging to Cruel Cockfight, Bullfight Traditions
In Yucatan, traditional cockfighting and bullfighting events spark intense debate between proponents citing culture and economic benefits, and opponents highlighting animal cruelty and the negative psychological impact on children.
It’s a Friday night, like any other Friday night here in Kanasín, and the faithful are gathering. Not for vespers, mind you, but for something far more primal, far more… profitable. Inside the palenque, the cockfighting arena, the noise is already building – a low murmur that will soon crescendo into a roar of shouts, cheers, and the frantic flapping of wings. This, in the Yucatán, is culture. This is tradition. And for a select few, this is serious money.
Because here, in this corner of Mexico where the ancient Mayan spirit still whispers on the breeze, the old ways die hard. And few ways are older, or more deeply ingrained, than pitting two specially bred, razor-spurred birds against each other in a fight to the death for the amusement and enrichment of men.
