SANTA FE – The accommodations at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter are for the birds.
Since last summer, the crowing of roosters has echoed through the facility’s hallways – all but drowning out the barks and meows of the other critters who call the shelter their temporary home.
“They never stop,” said Audrey Velasco, a supervisor with Santa Fe County Animal Control, said of the roosters. “First thing in the morning, and the last thing in the day when you drive away, you can hear them.”
The chickens’ quirky antics and random chatter have been a little too much to handle for folks like Velasco, who are not used to them.
“They’re kind of creepy,” she said of the roosters. “They’re kind of eerie.”
But the cocky noisemakers aren’t going anywhere for a while. That’s because the birds are more than just guests at the animal shelter – they’re evidence in a criminal case. The roosters were used in an alleged cockfighting ring busted by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office last July.
Prosecutors need to keep the roosters somewhere, because they plan to have the birds strut before jurors in the trial of Raul Trinidad-Enriquez, who is accused of running a cockfighting ring in the area of Santa Fe Downs.
What ultimately happens to the roosters depends on the outcome of the trial, which is set for jury selection in August. For now, they are county property.
“It’s not typical,” District Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco said of the county’s chicken flock. “But it’s evidence in a criminal offense.”
The allegations against Trinidad-Enriquez are serious. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of humor in the case. The last name of the prosecutor who will take this matter to trial, for example, is Cox. The sheriff’s deputy who investigated the case? His last name is Crow.
And if Trinidad-Enriquez is convicted, it might be said that his chickens came home to roost.
Employees at the shelter have been doing their best, and trying not to get their feathers ruffled.
Challenges have included where to house the birds, keeping the roosters separate so they don’t fight, finding a veterinarian who knows how to provide medical care, and figuring out how to preserve the carcass of any rooster that might die.
To add to the headache, the shelter has been taking in animal evacuees of the Las Conchas Fire, so it has had a full house of cats, dogs and, yes, roosters.
“It’s been extremely interesting, I’ll tell you that,” Velasco said with a laugh. “You first got to learn how to handle them. When I first did, I opened the door to a cage and they just started flapping toward me, all over the place.
“I screamed like a girl,” Velasco said. “I do that with moths, too. Just so you know.”
Santa Fe County Sheriff Robert Garcia has also noticed the changes.
“When you walk into the building, you hardly even hear dogs barking, but you hear roosters crowing,” Garcia said. “But we have to deal with it.”
The roosters were initially kept in separate cages behind the intake area for new dog arrivals. The birds’ loud crows often spooked the canines.
“They’re pretty stressed out to begin with when they arrive here,” Velasco said of the dogs. “This isn’t helping.”
Then, there was a situation that involved a bird that came down with an infection. The in-house veterinarian didn’t know how to treat sick roosters, so the county had to pony up the cost of an outside vet to take a look at the bird, which, unfortunately, died.
The bird’s death brought an additional cost to taxpayers. “It couldn’t be destroyed, because it’s evidence,” Garcia said. “That’s a minimum of 300 or some dollars that have to come out of my own budget.”
The dead rooster is being preserved in a freezer.
“We have to keep it,” DA Pacheco said of the dead bird. “The case is going to trial.”
Asked whether she’ll be sad to see the roosters leave someday, Velasco said simply, “No. I will not miss them.”
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Vic Vela at vvela@abqjournal.com or 505-992-6277 in Santa Fe. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
Reprint story -- Email the reporter at vvela@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-992-6277
