Idiots And Feral Chickens Rule Hawaii
BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 5 months ago
In my one and only visit to Hawaii (to Maui), I quickly got accustomed to feral chickens running around everywhere. Story has it from everyone there that chickens were brought to the Islands and hurricanes blew fences down and released them to the wild, and ever since then they have run around the Island untamed, uncaged and uncontrolled. They seem to take some sort of pleasure in knowing that they had chickens running loose. I took less pleasure when the Roosters crowed in the morning if I wanted to sleep. But the Roosters crow all the time, even at night. It’s a non-stop thing there.
In Hawaii, feral chickens are choosing to leave the country life and make their home in the densely populated areas of Honolulu.
The state notoriously has an ongoing problem with feral chickens, largely blamed on hurricanes setting them loose, tourists feeding them and even on cock fighting operations. The growing populations are a known nuisance in the suburbs and rural areas of the different Hawaiian Islands, but now the wild fowl are infiltrating the concrete jungles of Honolulu in greater numbers.
“Chickens are wandering around like they own the place,” Karin Lynn, a Honolulu resident, told Civil Beat. “They just don’t belong in an urban environment. It seems to be there’s no control over it and it’s getting worse. … It’s a feral menace.”
Aside from roosters crowing in the hours before dawn, the feral chickens damage crops, spread weeds, threaten native plants and are a road hazard.
Honolulu residents, who have gotten tired of the nightly noise pollution, are taking matters into their own hands, literally. This summer, neighbors spontaneously joined other neighbors, whom they didn’t know before, on missions to hunt and catch the roosters that were keeping them all up at night.
“They are pretty fast and fly up on the power lines or on someone’s roof, where you can’t reach them,” Tim Streitz, a Honolulu resident in the McCully-Moiliili neighborhood, told Civil Beat. “It was pretty difficult.”
The informal posse caught “at least five” and released them elsewhere on the island, but residents want more help from the government.
The city has tried to capture the birds in high-problem areas, but capturing them, as the residents experienced, is not as easy as it seems. In May, it was revealed that the city spent $7,000 over two months to catch just 67 chickens, equal to $104 per bird.
“We can’t do much to address all the feral chickens but the city is doing its best,” Honolulu City Council member Calvin Say told Civil Beat.
Streitz thinks people should be allowed to shoot them with pellet guns. Currently, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources instructs to capture the bird and then euthanize it. Killing the chickens, however, sparks another controversy.
The latest Hawaii bill to manage feral chicken numbers by using a contraceptive bird feed, Senate Bill 2195, failed to pass this session, so it appears the city’s residents will have to contend with more sleepless nights.
This is hilarious and I couldn’t be happier for the state of Hawaii. No one deserves it more.
Note the comedic failures here. They caught the chickens, and then released them elsewhere, doing nothing whatsoever to address the problem.
In fact, they are told not to by the state. Apparently, the state wants to capture them, and then presumably send them to Veterinarians to be euthanized. I also presume that the state would agree to pay for the Vet services every time a new chicken came into the clinic.
So far they are spending $100 per bird. Perhaps if they increase this amount to several hundred million dollars they might have a bit of success. Also, perhaps they could prepare a chicken sanctuary for the captures birds rather than eat them. They could pick one of the Islands and devote it entirely to chickens. Yea, that would do the job. If they could catch them all. Then they could erect a statue to the chicken god at the entrance to the island sanctuary. Entrance would require falling down and worshipping the chicken god and all of his ancestors.
We can’t have men running around with shotguns to handle the problem. If any killing is to be done, I assume it will be a massively expensive operation performed by SWAT snipers, all hidden away so that people don’t see the bloodshed.
Hilarious. And ridiculous.
I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea to invite Hawaiians on hunting trips then?
On November 6, 2022 at 11:04 pm, PGF said:
At the current pace of inflation those chicken’s days may be numbered.
On November 7, 2022 at 6:08 am, jrg said:
PGF took my answer. After capture, no one will miss the feral chicken caught. If the animal is healthy, killing and consuming makes the most sense to me. Especially with insane cost of food in Hawaii.
On November 7, 2022 at 7:05 am, Latigo Morgan said:
The stupid! It burns!
You catch the chicken, give it’s neck a quick twist and jerk – it’s dead.
Clean chicken.
Build fire.
Cook over fire while basting with teriyaki sauce. Aloha chicken problem. Aloha nice chicken dinner.
On November 7, 2022 at 7:06 am, MN Steel said:
Concurrently, there is(was?) a feral cat problem on Oahu, specifically the North Shore. If it wasn’t roosters waking you, it was “Cat in Heat Symphony #6” all night long.
There were no stray dogs, however there were a lot of Korean BBQ joints.
The Hawaiians are much like Feather Indians, they enjoy their free monies, severely dislike wypeepos that support their lifestyle, and will bitch about having their own nation while not having the agency to keep it… sanitary.
On November 7, 2022 at 8:42 am, mike said:
Mike Yon thinks Hawaii is looking at severe famine since it is an isolated island group with only specialized agriculture. If he is right, this problem will solve itself.
On November 7, 2022 at 10:11 am, Frank Clarke said:
My daughter’s solution to chickens that have outlived their usefulness is to send them to CrockPot Camp…
On November 7, 2022 at 12:28 pm, Paul B said:
I like crock pot camp. yes, chicken dinners all around will solve the problem.
On November 7, 2022 at 12:37 pm, scott s. said:
It’s really the problem of wildlife in any urban area. Has nothing to do with Hawaiians. There are the usual cat lady / sierra club types who think it’s cruel to kill them. Probably more mainland transplants than anything else.
On November 8, 2022 at 3:04 pm, Levi Garrett said:
I see this all the time with people saying, “I have a problem with ______ (fill in the blank with squirrel, feral dog, raccoon, coyote, etc) eating my crops, terrorizing my kids, blah, blah, blah”, and looking for solutions. Many people respond with stupid answers such as play loud music to scare it away, put hot pepper sauce on your plants to make them unpalatable, trap/relocate, etc. People generally can’t just quietly take care of the problem with lethal means and resort to chasing stupid solutions instead, just like the chicken story above. They are afraid to do what needs to be done and practice SSS if necessary. They’re always looking for someone to tell them what to do and make decisions for them. You don’t have to ask the king’s permission to protect you and yours.
On November 8, 2022 at 5:58 pm, Nosmo said:
Hawaii is a series of islands, right? And Hawaiian agriculture is limited and very crop specific, so the only ways to get ” other supplies” to Hawaii is boat or plane.
Stop shipping them “other supplies” for 15 days and the problem will become non-existent. New problems may surface, but another 15-30 days should cure those, too.