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By Kate Harrison
Staff Writer
May is prime cockfighting season.
Rooster fighting tournaments that kick off around Thanksgiving culminate in big-money derbies this month before the roosters start molting in the summer heat, officials say.
Although the practice was banned as a cruel blood sport in Tennessee in 1881, investigators say cockfighting is alive and well, with fights in the region almost every weekend.
Last summer, more than 100 people -- most from out of state -- were arrested at a cockfighting raid in Polk County.
Authorities said the bloody sport's fans flock to Tennessee because, unlike in neighboring Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, getting caught fighting roosters isn't a serious crime.
Tennessee is one of only 12 states that don't classify cockfighting as a felony. Though all other forms of animal fighting are felonies in the state, cockfighting is a misdemeanor, usually punished with a $50 fine.
For the past four years, Tennessee lawmakers have tried to increase the penalty for cockfighting and, for the past four years, the bills have been blocked before they reached the House floor.
"It is one of those anomalies in code. Fighting any other animal in the state is a felony, except for...