Shame on Bush for ignoring the key questions of his administration by retreating to the "high ground" of the gay marriage "issue." So what if it is a moral, not executive, query? So what if mechanisms exist that make this squarely a states' rights question? If it will turn out the rabid in November, it's his baby. If it provides a little ground cover for those pesky WMD and basic honesty issues, all the better.
But while the Bush legions fret about When Harry Met Hairy, our nation is struggling with real challenges.
Just this week, a bipartisan coalition was formed in in Fitzgerald, Georgia to bring together warring factions in the great wild chicken debate.
Poultry-with-attitude roam their streets in squawking, screeeching packs, tearing up gardens, eating bugs and otherwise doing as they please.
Hardly the banal bantam, these currently protected mobs are a hybrid of red junglefowl (brought from Southeast Asia in the 60s as possible local game birds) and the indigenous cock-a-doodle doo population.
(For those unfamiliar with South Georgia, killing quail is huge business here. Elite hunting lodges and private leases have provided bird-blasting amusement for generations of Southern gentry).
They have inadvertantly created bad-ass birds impervious to the need for human support to survive, in fact, thrive.
According to the Associated Press account pasted at the end of this blog, this is not an isolated incident. Key West had to hire a Chicken Ranger to take back their streets.
Don't let it come to that in your town. Contact your president today and urge him to address the pullet packs.
He's given us three years of chickenshit expertise. Let's put it to work.
(Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs)

From the Associated Press today:
Wild chickens are ruffling feathers in town known for harmony
ELLIOTT MINOR
Associated Press
FITZGERALD, Ga. - Founded as a Deep South colony for weary Union veterans, residents of this south Georgia town have always prided themselves on their ability to put differences aside and live in harmony.

That was, of course, before a wild colony of chickens came along and grew into a clucking cadre of hundreds that roams the streets, screeches at cars and scratches up flower beds. As complaints grew, others emerged to support the birds as a charming community asset.

Now the town of 10,000 that boasts a Blue & Gray Museum, hosts a "Harmony Jubilee" and puts on a play titled "Our Friends, the Enemy" has become divided between pro- and anti-bird forces. And the squawking has become an issue that town officials may ultimately have to settle.

"We have people who love them and people who hate them," said city manager Henry Tyson. "I kind of have to work both sides."

Fitzgerald's wild chickens are believed to have descended from red junglefowl that were brought from Southeastern Asia in the 1960s in a failed attempt to provide a pheasant-like game bird for the South.

The bird brouhaha flared up once before in 1998 when there were far fewer birds and visitors had to drive the back streets to spot them. Since then, the population has exploded. An exact count hasn't been taken, but they are well into the hundreds.

The birds amble across main streets and screech if cars get too close. Bird bashers say they scratch up lawns and flower beds, leave droppings and crow loudly.

Diana Pate, a leading anti-chicken activist, said they wake her up at all hours of the night.

"I would like the city to take responsibility and control the spread of them," she said. "It's not that we're animal haters. Part of the reason we pay taxes ... is for the safety and protection of our property. We feel they violate all the reasons we pay."

Similar complaints about a flock of 2,000 wild chickens in Key West, Fla., resulted in that city deciding earlier this year to hire an official chicken catcher to thin the flock.

Fitzgerald's Tyson said there are no current plans to do that, but the squabble could come to a head Monday night when anti- and pro-chicken activists present petitions to the city council.

For now, Tyson said, an animal control officer responds to complaints by trapping individual chickens and giving them to people in neighboring counties who want them.

But fans of the fowl say the town shouldn't trap chickens, it should embrace them. They want the town to adopt the wild chicken as its official bird and pass an ordinance protecting it.

They love watching the strutting roosters, with their brilliant orange and yellow feathers. The roosters' crowing is music to their ears, and they maintain the birds have plenty of practical benefits.

"They go in the alleys and eat bugs," said Jan Gelders, a leader of the pro-chicken movement. "One of my neighbors is using them for crime prevention. They're usually quiet when they roost in a tree at night. If they start making a noise, you can bet something is going on."

I. Lehr Brisbin, an ecologist at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, is seeking funding to study Fitzgerald's chickens.

He suspects some of the original Asian chickens escaped from the Fitzgerald hatchery, mated with bantam chickens in the area and passed on DNA sequences that gave them a "survivorship" advantage - the ability to live off the land without human assistance.

Scientists have tried to create feral chicken populations, but invariably they get killed by predators during the nesting season, he said.

"I think they've just got a knack of how to do it," Brisbin said.

That knack for survival may include winning over some of the town's residents, including David Handley, a welder in a downtown garage.

"They're pretty and I like seeing them around," he said. "Maybe the people who don't like them ought to be relocated."