Animal Wellness Action – Measuring Resident Attitudes Toward Cockfighting and Animal Welfare

Client: Animal Wellness Action
Service: Public Opinion Research
Sector: Nonprofit

The Challenge

Animal Wellness Action needed reliable evidence of where Guam residents stood on cockfighting and animal welfare as a new federal prohibition on animal fighting was approaching implementation.

Public discussion had largely assumed that cockfighting was broadly supported as a cultural tradition and that the federal prohibition was widely viewed as an outside imposition. Yet those assumptions had not been tested through representative public opinion research.

With the issue being debated locally and nationally, anecdotal evidence and the most vocal participants in the discussion could not establish what the broader population actually believed.

Animal Wellness Action needed an independent measure of public opinion that could withstand scrutiny, distinguish prevailing attitudes from assumptions, and provide a credible basis for understanding how Guam residents viewed both cockfighting and animal welfare more broadly.

The Approach

MR&D conducted a probability-sample telephone survey of adult Guam residents designed to produce a representative and methodologically transparent measure of public opinion.

Households were selected from a pooled frame of published landline and postpaid mobile telephone numbers. Within each household, the adult with the most recent birthday was interviewed, helping ensure that both households and individual respondents were selected through a randomized process rather than self-selection.

MR&D completed 400 interviews over a two-week field period, producing results with a margin of error of approximately ±5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The resulting sample was compared with census population parameters. When the sample was found to skew older, MR&D disclosed the difference and tested whether age was associated with attitudes toward the issues being measured. Rather than silently weighting the results, the methodology and decision not to apply weighting were explicitly documented.

The questionnaire began with broader questions about animal welfare before moving into attitudes toward cockfighting and the federal prohibition. Key issues were measured through multiple questions and framings, including arguments commonly used by supporters of the practice.

The Outcome

he research challenged several assumptions that had shaped the public discussion.

Sixty percent of respondents opposed cockfighting, compared with 21% who favored it. Support for the federal prohibition was similarly strong, with 61% in favor and 25% opposed.

Support also extended beyond the immediate question of cockfighting. Eighty-nine percent of respondents expressed concern about the mistreatment of animals on Guam, and approximately 90% supported strengthening Guam’s animal cruelty laws.

The demographic analysis provided additional context for interpreting the results. Support for the federal prohibition extended across the demographic groups examined, while the age analysis found younger respondents were more likely—not less—to oppose cockfighting.

The findings gave Animal Wellness Action a statistically grounded picture of Guam public opinion at a consequential point in the policy discussion. MR&D recommended communicating from the measured attitudes of residents, broadening the conversation to the wider animal-welfare concerns identified by the research, and making the survey methodology available so the findings could be independently scrutinized.

At a Glance

400 
Representative Public Opinion Sample

60% 
of Residents Opposed Cockfighting on Guam

~90%
of Residents Support Stronger Animal Protection

MR&D Capabilities Demonstrated

Quantitative Research • Data & Demographic Analysis • Market Research