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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: September 2007

A dogfighting case rocks Gaelic football

 

BELFAST--A 17-month undercover investigation of dogfighting by BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight program, aired on August 30, caught County Tyrone Gaelic football star Gerald Cavlan, 31, boasting in front of a hidden camera about a dogfighting club he cofounded called Bulldog Sanctuary Kennels.

Cavlan's alleged use of the "sanctuary" ruse appeared to be a first in the British Isles, but U.S. dogfighters have often been caught in recent years operating behind false front "sanctuaries" and "rescues." Some have collected pit bull terriers and "bait" dogs and cats from unwitting members of the public.

"The BBC program deployed an undercover specialist from England who duped organizers of two dog-fighting clubs in Northern Ireland and two breeders of American pit bulls in Finland who supplied dogs to Cavlan and other Northern Ireland-based dog fighters," reported Shawn Pogatchnik of Associated Press. "All were filmed discussing the tricks of their trade and methods of evading detection."

The two BBC crew confronted Finland-based breeders Robert Gonzales and Paul Dunkel with evidence of their activities before police arrested them.

"The program displayed documents showing Cavlan acquired a pit bull named Cannon Ball from Gonzales, and traveled to Finland to observe dog fights," Pogatchnik wrote. Spotlight, the flagship investigative program for BBC-Belfast, also secretly filmed a dogfight in Finland involving Gonzales and Tom Bell, an organizer of another Northern Ireland dog-fighting club called the Farmers Boys.

In April 2007 Cavlan pleaded guilty to possession of a dangerous dog--Cannon Ball--after the Ulster SPCA seized more than a dozen alleged fighting dogs from a kennel that Cavlan co-owned with an alleged Protestant extremist and drug dealer.

Cavlan was fined $1,300 and ordered not to keep terriers, but was not suspended by the Gaelic Athletic Association.

Cavlan's dogfighting operation was small compared to that of the Farmers Boys, said Stephen Philpott of the Ulster SPCA. "The Farmers Boys are the Manchester United of the dog fighting world," Philpott asserted. "Over the last 25 years they have established trading partners in inner city Britain, and are now selling their dogs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, and London."

BBC reporter Mandy McAuley, a member of the undercover team, explained that the dogfighters exploit the relatively open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which unlike Britain allows possession of pit bulls.

"They can bring dogs from other countries to Dublin, then drive them up," McAuley said. "Then they can either keep the dogs for their own breeding or fights, or put them on a ferry over to Britain. We did this ourselves and saw how easy it was."

"The team went to Finland and bought a pit bull from a breeder, who provided fake documents identifying the dog as a boxer-Labrador cross," said BBC News. "They also witnessed a fight in Finland which ended in the death of one of the dogsS¹a badly injured dog was electrocuted."

The Ulster SPCA followed up the BBC exposé with raids that impounded two suspected fighting dogs and alleged dogfighting equipment.

In absence of an applicable national law, the Dublin city council on July 1, 2007 banned 11 dog breeds from public housing, including English and Staffordshire bull terriers, American pit bulls, German shepherds, Rottweilers, Dobermans, Rhodesian ridgebacks, Akitas, bull mastiffs, bandogs, and Tosas.