When is a bird sanctuary not a bird sanctuary? When the City Manager says it isn't. On June 12, City Manager Julio Avael authorized Assistant City Manager John Jones to enforce city codes allowing permits for the destruction of birds that are "obnoxious and destructive." He wrote:
"The proliferation of chickens in the neighborhoods and on the streets of Key West has made the chickens obnoxious and destructive to the areas they are in."
County Health Administrator Stephanie Walters has pronounced them "not only a nuisance, but a public health concern as well." She wrote a letter "to support the City of Key West's initiative to reduce the flocks of chickens in Key West."
Will the City start rounding them up without notice to poultry owners, without offering people a chance to pen them? What methods will be used to "humanely reduce" the chicken population?
After we (Rooster Rescue Team) meet with City officials next week, we will have a better idea of what is in store for the free-range chickens, the beloved "demon poultry of Key West."
No city loves its chickens the way Key West loves chickens. Many towns love the jobs that the slaughter, plucking and packaging of chickens bring. Other cities (and even states) have loaned their name to the way their chickens are "done," i.e. Buffalo and Kentucky.
But chickens are the very soul of the city in Key West. They are the surrogate "I" in its people's dreams. These chickens not merely cute kitchen trimmings or Easter pocket-peeps. They are hardy, hearty, clever, coy, conniving, gorgeous, insanely jealous and as lustful as the day is long. They are vitality itself, the thirst for life encarnate.
In the early days, they were the only livestock this remote island would support. Gamecocks set the underlying tone for this place along with the Cuban cigarmakers, the alley cats and bolito. These chickens are not plump, dopey oven-stuffers; they are savvy, streetwise hens and roosters who live by the beak and spur.
Even eagles occasionally lose a skirmish to them, in the same way that even the federal goverment must sometimes fold and give the Conch Republic its due.
These chickens have been so successful, they have gotten themselves in trouble. They are everywhere— at the Shell station, at Blockbuster, sometimes crowing in your ear at 3 am. Some people want them gone. In the same way that a nation should be judged by the treatment it offers its least powerful citizens, a city can be judged by the way it treats its least politically correct wildlife.
Chickens were brought here as a slave to man. Will we now punish them for being good and remaining loyal to us; and save our compassion for the alligator and the shark? Or will we put Key West once again on the world map— as we did with the Conch Republic sucession— reminding the outside world this is a place where freedom, diversity and goofiness are embraced?
These are issues brought to the fore by questions of free-ranging city fowl. I am not saying that the city should force unwilling residents to accept rogue livestock, any more than I would ask them to subsidize bums or underwrite graffiti. But it should have a plan which would allow for continued consensual relations between willing residents and indigenous poultry.
The Rooster Rescue Team and the Chicken Store will eagerly work with the City, the SPCA, the County health authorities and Wildlife Rescue toward a solution which will allow nuisance fowl to be relocated to safe places where they will not cause problems, and will allow the chickens beloved by Key Westers to continue plying the grounds where they are accepted.
But if "humanely reduce the chicken population" (the City's words) should come to mean "a quick death to all free-range City chickens," we will not participate, nor will we stand idly by.
Q: I hear that "sentinel chicken" flocks are used by mainland (not Keys!) mosquito control agencies to monitor the appearance of encephlitis, dengue, Lyme disease and other pathogens. Do chickens spread these diseases to humans?
A: They can catch and carry many diseases to which humans are susceptible— but so can cats, dogs, deer, pigs and horses. Chickens, however, unlike other domestic animals, stalk and kill termites, scorpions, ticks, cockroaches, mealy bugs and other vectors of disease. There are the good guys!
Q: Are chickens a threat to our health if they frequent open-air cafes?
A: As much so as pigeons, cats, dogs, and roof rats. But rats keep a much lower profile— they work at night, and don't crow about it.
Q: How can I keep the chickens out of my yard?
A: First, eliminate anything that may attract them such as cat or dog food and overgrown brush where they can nest. Secondly, eat or discard any eggs you find. Thirdly, Mylar ballons, fake owls and live dogs may spook them off. If all else fails, call the Chicken Store at 294-0070 and ask a volunteer to capture and relocate them.
Since relocation requests outpace volunteer hours, the Chicken Store is looking hard for a few good women to join its all-woman Rooster Rescue Team (and its male-inclusive auxiliary). Again, please call 294-0070.