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I don’t know if you’ve spent any real time around chickens, but they can be terrifying.
Seriously.
I know your friends and family have these urban chickens and treat them like dogs and swear they’re affectionate, but my people are Iowa farm stock, and let me tell you: not one of them would voluntarily pet or attempt to snuggle an ill-tempered fowl.
Which is exactly what resides on Jersey, the largest of the United Kingdom’s channel islands.
Not just one – a lot of them.
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Flocks of wild chickens are running loose, waking people at dawn clucking and crowing, trampling gardens, interrupting traffic, and giving chase to the unsuspecting jogger.
And if it seems like people might be complaining about what amounts to a certain degree of kitsch and nothing more, well, consider this: the flocks of birds number in the 100s. And without indigenous foxes or other small predators, the population continues to grow unchecked.
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There’s a bit of a PETA-style kerfuffle when it comes to dealing with the issue, a fact that Jersey Environment Minister John Young learned when he ordered a couple of “modest” culls that put down around 35 chickens. But the chickens are feral – not pets – and therefore are not protected under the U.K.’s animal welfare law.
“We are in a situation where we have got animal lovers on one hand and where we have got those who are experiencing a nuisance on the other. I can’t pretend to sit here and say I have got an answer to that,” he said.
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According to the BBC, the chickens don’t pose any significant risk, unless one considers swerving to avoiding hitting them in the road (which does sound risky), though an argument against sleep-loss could certainly be made – and if people stop jogging, heart health could also be at risk.
While they work on an answer that will please everyone, officials are urging residents and visitors not to feed the wild chickens, who will breed more if they are fat and happy.
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I wonder if this might work with humans, too.
