Feathers fly over Thailand's lucrative cockfighting pits

Bangkok

THE cry of roosters drowns out the roar of engines beneath a Bangkok flyover as all eyes are trained on two sparring birds, a bloody, high-stakes battle in a country where cockfighting is big business.

The birds do not usually fight to the death, as in many parts of the world, but they can still inflict fatal damage to their opponents in contests almost always accompanied by lucrative gambling.

For the few dozen men surrounding a technically illegal but tolerated underpass ring, cockfighting is as much a generations-old Thai tradition as it is commerce.

"Probably it's genetic as my parents like cockfighting too," a…