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"Road Trips" by The Old Squid
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the
Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you may be
swept off to."
Bilbo Baggins
E-Cards from the Edge #2
The Key West Chicken
Many places have famous animals. Puxatawney Pennsylvania has Phil the groundhog. San Juan Island used to have rabbits, lots of rabbits! People would come from the mainland to sit on chairs strapped to car bumpers and careen about the fields with long handled nets catching them. About 20 years ago though, the rabbits all died. Key West has its chickens. After neglect, followed by contempt, followed by a bounty, followed by an official chicken catcher, and finally followed by resignation, Key West still has its chickens though and their survival is worthy of a heroic poem… or at least a musical comedy.
Colorful, local art dedicated to
the Key West chicken
The current birds look nothing like the drab breeds we see on our farms. They are colorful and resemble a wild bird more than a domestic one. They are proud, pugnacious, … and boy are they noisy! The current crop of birds probably descends from escaped fighting cocks left by Cubans who lived and worked in Key West during the time when cockfighting was legal. Domestic birds brought to the islands by natives and settlers over the years have interbred and the mix has been a fixture of this community for over a century. When the village was a small semi-rural community on a small Caribbean island it didn't matter and they were a food source of last resort for the poor and farmers. The chickens ate cockroaches and scorpions but the town grew and sometime during the past few decades it filled all of the vacant space available and change was in the air. This didn't cause the chickens any problem though as they are just as good at scrounging a meal in a garden as well as the wild. The chickens adapted quite well and lent a little local color to the town. There is even a Chicken Store dedicated to all things…chicken!
About 20 years ago, as more retired Snowbirds moved down from the north, something new was added to the nightscape: street lights! Of course, chickens crow to greet the dawn but now they didn't know when it was dawn so instead of crowing in the early morning and then shutting up, they started crowing at all hours. All night long you can here the birds cutting lose as somewhere a rooster opens an eye and decides that the orange light that that he sees must be the sun coming up and he does his best to greet it as any self respecting rooster would do.
As more and more people moved to paradise and paid big money for there piece of it, they started to take notice of this noise and as they were city folks and used to getting their own way, they decided that "something must be done about that infernal racket!" As is usual in these cases they turned to the only political entity with supposed power over the Key West chickens, the town council.
There was much discussion but it was never decided as to how to proceed against the chicken plague. Some urged sterilization, others just birth control. A few were for outright eradication but no resolution was reached. Finally a savior appeared, the local barber, who said that if the council would simply designate him as the official Key West Chicken Catcher, he would solve the problem and do it in a humane way that didn't involve a fowl death. For $20 per bird he would catch and relocate them to a farm in Georgia that would allow them to live in return for a few eggs. The town council agreed but put a 900-bird limit on the number of chickens caught and paid for. They gave the barber 9 months to thin the flock.
The story appeared in the local paper. Then it appeared in the Florida papers. Then the national wire services caught it. Soon, calls were coming in from all over the world. Next, radio and television starting clamoring for appearances and the only official Key West Chicken Catcher in the world became a Celebrity!
Months later the council realized that the as the number of appearances on TV were going up, the number of chickens caught was going down, way down. Also, the chicken's rights movement was ramping up and birds were being released before they could be relocated, traps were being smashed, the barber was being threatened by Rooster Rights terrorists. The town finally pulled the Chicken Catchers license and in the long tradition of political battles declared the problem solved. About 500 birds were relocated and those that remained went onto breeding mode to fill the newfound living space. While we were in Key West, my fearless Wife and I saw many clutches of new chicks but no baby Snowbirds. The Town Council is henpecked, the barber flew the coop and it sure looks like a chicken victory to me.
Read more about the controversy at:
HERE
- The Old Squid
The Old Squid's email address is: oldsquid@sanjuanislander.com
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