Where the Wild Things Are

Polar bears are breaking into Siberian apartment buildings looking for food. Cougars out West are mauling runners who’re encroaching on their turf. Week in, week out, there are local news reports about moose and black bears marauding around cities. And coyotes in the ‘hood are barely worth noticing anymore.

In Brookline, Massachusetts, wild turkeys are stalking residents. (I’ve had several close encounters at the Beaconsfield T stop. Walk purposively and whatever you do, don’t make eye contact.) And cats, well, cats are always plotting a way to kill their owners, aren’t they? If only they were a bit larger than they are. Rats!

Anyway, if you’re wondering where the wild things are, they’re everywhere.

The latest incursion of the wild kingdom onto “our” turf occurred in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, which is “being terrorised by hordes of feral chickens.”

Residents have been making complaints about the birds, which have also become a traffic hazard. Two small culls have been carried out, but they continue to cause chaos, the Environment Minister has admitted.

It is believed the chickens were once pets which were abandoned, before rapidly breeding. They now roam the British island in 100-strong groups. (Source: iNews)

Chickens in gangs 100-strong? Yowza. And these are feral chickens, which makes them sound pretty darned scary.  These are not natural-born feral chickens. They’re domesticated chickens which were once pets but which have been abandoned. Pretty nasty to abandon an animal that had been a pet, even if I don’t get chickens as pets.

I’ve never actually known anyone who’s kept a chicken for anything other than eggs or cutlets, but I know they’re out there.

My friend Marie had some neighbors who kept chickens as pets for their kids. (Marie kept dogs for hers.) The chicken-keepers were pretty eccentric to begin with. Although the neighbors/ kids were roughly the same ages as Marie’s, as pre-schoolers they were not allowed to play together because the parents were afraid that if their kiddos were exposed to other kiddos, hers would get sick.

Marie tried to explain that kids need to get exposed to others – and even to get sick – so that their resistance would build up before they started school.

This couple didn’t buy it. They kept their kids to themselves and got them the chickens as a consolation prize for not having any friends.

Don’t know what happened to those kids – or those chickens. Presumably, the odd couple didn’t tire of them and let them go free-ranging around the mean streets of Providence, Rhode Island.

But a lot of chicken owners in Jersey were apparently more than willing to let theirs go.

And when they’re let go, they make their way to other chickens, forming gangs that have gained a reputation for “waking up locals, damaging gardens and even chasing joggers.” Oh, and also becoming a traffic hazard.

One problem in Jersey is that there are no foxes there. So the chickens have no natural predator.

The government has been lightly culling the herds, but the gangs keep on keeping on. A rapid reproduction cycle doesn’t help. (Guess you don’t neuter chickens as pets.)

“We are in a situation where we have got animal lovers on the 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.”

I’m an animal lover, but I’m all for chicken-culling. Wish they’d cull the Canada geese which have infested our locale for the past decade or so, fowls befouling our walkways. And I do mean befouling.

For a couple of years, dogs were brought in to chase them away, but that initiative fell through. Then there was a group that went around oiling goose eggs so they wouldn’t hatch. This seemed like a good idea, but some pro-life chicken lovers squawked.

On Jersey, in addition to the modest culls – only 35 have been culled out of hundreds of gang members – the powers that be are encouraging folks “not to feed them.

Civilians are permitted to get rid of nuisance chickens, as “feral chickens are not protected under the animal welfare law because they do not belong to anybody.”

Well, that’s good.

Encountering a small troop of wild turkeys is bad enough, but coming across a feral chicken gang that’s 100 strong? No, no, a thousand times no.

Somedays, I’m afraid to open the door.