Local law enforcement estimates that there could be a few hundred galleros or "cockfighters" in the Central Valley.
Cockfighters are willing to risk getting fined or even arrested should they get caught practicing a tradition they say runs passionately in their blood.
Many classic Mexican movies deal with cockfighting as nothing more than a backdrop for a great story. In fact some of the most popular Mexican voices of all-time sing about cockfighting as Garth Brooks would about rodeos.
Cockfighting fills up the biggest arenas throughout Mexico. It's an event that all cockfighters enjoy openly without any fear of legal consequences.
One Kern cockfighter who spoke to 17 News said in Mexico it is normal to own fighting roosters, and that he is the proud owner of more than 150 roosters he keeps hidden from the law. Except that in the United States, this part of the Mexican culture is illegal. That's why this proud gallero didn't want his name used.
The Rural Crimes Task Force of the Sheriffs Department says investigators have seen more than 300 people gathered at Kern cockfights, but because of the vastness of the county's orchards, it is usually nearly impossible to know when and where they are taking place.
"We know they are taking place because we hear from the local farmers who are innundated by these people that go into their orchards, saidl Sgt. Walt Reed of the sheriff's Rural Crimes Task Force.
"There is a specific place we meet,'' the cockfighter said. "Nobody knows where it is until the last moment."
Kern sheriff's deputies have busted four cockfights since July. "It becomes mass chaos," the cockfighter said. "Everybody scrambles to leave the area they'll drive through the orchards destroying the irrigation anything to escape law enforcement. "I've been chased twice, but I have been lucky that I haven't been caught."
Local cockfighters are also lucky that in California, it is only a misdemeanor to fight roosters, unlike 35 other states where it is a felony to be a cockfighter.
That's a California law that animal rights organizations want to strengthen. They say tougher laws will force cockfighters to drop their passion to cockfight.
''A Misdemeanor, quite frankly, is not on the radar of law enforcement since they have to focus their priorities on crimes that are more serious on the penal code," said Jennifer Fearing of the Humane Society of the U.S.
Though it is part of the Mexican culture, cockfighting is also an underground event within other communities, such as Filipinos, and Americans with southern roots.
