The Island Chicken Story

My first picture taken on the Kauai Island was not of the beautiful flowers

or the beaches

It was this one:

Wild chickens. Before I saw them, I read about them. Wall Street Journal published very interesting Ann Zimmerman's article in April.
She wrote that Kauai was overrun by roosters, hens and little chicks which forage at outdoor food courts, ruin sugar cane and corn crops and wake islanders and tourists with predawn crowing. The birds lay eggs inside store booths.

The WSJ article explains that other Hawaiian islands have wild chickens, too, but Kauai's problem is worse since it's the only island in the chain that doesn't have mongooses,the natural enemy of wild chickens. "Mongooses were imported to the Hawaiian islands in the late 1800s to kill rats in the sugar-cane fields. Local legend has it that a mongoose bit the hand of a Kauai dockworker, who knocked the entire crate of the critters into the bay, and no more were imported. That's good news for rare bird species if nobody else".

This picture was taken near the waterfall that can't be reached by a car. We kaiaked and then hiked for a mile. And what we saw there the first? The wild rooster!

We, personally, were not annoyed by the crowing.
Boys were excited to see the birds walking into the restaurants and loved feeding them the corn sold for this purpose.

So, where did they come from?

The WSJ article says: "Kauai's wild-chicken population started to get out of hand in 1992, when Hurricane Iniki, the state's most devastating hurricane, hit the island, doing $1.8 billion in damage to the beaches, hotels and local property. At the time, there were five sugar plantations on the island. Workers, many from Portugal and the Philippines, lived on the plantations and raised animals for food. Domestic chickens were set loose during the storm. But there was also a large, underground cockfighting scene on the island, according to Becky Rhodes, director of the Kauai Humane Society.
"The hurricane blew apart the containers where the cocks were raised, and they flourished" in the wild. The wild hens are edible, but remain tough even after hours of cooking, locals attest. Still, as the economy in Kauai worsens -- tourism spending was down 15% last year -- more hens are winding up on the dinner table. That's no threat to the roosters, though."

We saw a lot of colorful souvenirs inspired by the wild chickens. We heard that the birds eat centipedes - that is why some people can forgive them the noise which they make.

The Kauai's wild chickens reminded me of the Key West where the birds could be seen crossing the streets in front of the cars. The BIG difference is that there are thousands of them in Kauai.

The WSJ article is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123863006121980573.html