THE TINY island of Key West, Florida, has a lot of chickens. You might say they're pretty cooped up there. (Cue laugh track.)
While the wild chickens are a tradition of Key West, officials have decided to take measures to reduce the number of chickens populating the island after receiving hundreds of complaints from residents. A pretty standard precaution, right?
Right...unless you happen to be one of the people who believe the chickens are being unfairly blamed by this offensive proposal and that chickens are to be given the same rights as Key West tourists. No, really. Tourists. It's these people that have led me to believe that America is slowly going insane.
The island is literally overrun with chickens. There are about 2,000 of them running around on the eight-square-mile island.
According to residents, the chickens dig up yards, scamper around in traffic, leave chicken droppings everywhere and crow loudly in the middle of the night and early morning, keeping half the island awake.
The plan, approved by the City Commission, is to trap about half of the chickens and transport them to a farm in Tampa where they can live a nice chicken life. A city ordinance prohibits the killing of any chickens on the island, so no chickens would be harmed in this move.
Oh, wait...apparently everyone forgot to ask the chickens how they felt about this.
According to Katha Sheehan, the "Chicken Lady" of Key West, this move is a "blame and deport the chickens kind of thing" (www.msnbc.com, "Activists cry 'fowl' over Key West's move against chickens", Jan 8). Sheehan believes the problem lies not with the chickens, but with the number of tourists who come to Key West each year, destroying the chickens' habitat in their evil human way. She suggests Key West deports half of the tourists instead. She also suggests that the island set up a "rooster park" where people can adopt chickens.
It's not Ms. Sheehan that bothers me, who I'm sure is a very nice lady who really, really likes chickens. It's the fact that thousands -- yes, thousands -- of people have signed her petition to save the chickens. Thousands of people are actually rallying for chicken justice.
For one thing, Key West is planning on removing only half of the chickens from the island, still leaving 1,000 chickens in eight miles to carry on the tradition. For another, the city is simply obliging its many residents who have complained about chickens running all over the place and generally disrupting life. And as far as the adopt-a-chicken idea goes, I think Ms. Sheehan would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the island, or anywhere else for that matter, willing to adopt a chicken as a pet.
Now, there's nothing wrong with protecting animal rights, keeping traditions, or signing petitions. But I really have to put my foot down when thousands of Americans are trying to stop the removal of a bunch of chickens, who have been deemed a "safety and health hazard" by Key West officials, because it might make the chickens feel bad.
Ahem.THEY'RE CHICKENS!
I strongly believe that America is sliding down the slippery slope into insanity. Yes, the chickens should not be killed, hurt or dumped into the ocean. They should be allowed to live somewhere where they will be very happy. Animals have rights, too. But, as many Americans today seem to forget, animals are not people.
We, as humans, sitting atop the structure known as the food chain, have a natural right to nicely and safely remove any animals that pose a safety or heath risk to other humans. The chicken tradition of Key West will hardly be affected with the removal of only half the chickens. It is beyond ridiculous to stop this process because the chickens' feeling might be hurt.
They don't have feelings. They're chickens. The people of Key West shouldn't be bird-ened by them any longer. (Again, cue the laugh track.)
(Kristin Brown's column appears on Wednesdays. She can be reached at kbrown@cavalierdaily.com.)
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