Story: In the land of the Roosters

Dawn breaks and I hear a rooster cry. Then another. Then another. I can tell they’re different roosters because the calls come from different directions – north, south, east, west, up, down and all around. If you’ve ever listened to a rooster’s cock-a-doodle-do, I mean really listen, you can tell that each rooster has it’s own boisterous crow.

During my three days on Kauai, I had plenty of time to listen to plenty of different rooster calls, and I have to say that not all roosters are created equal. For the most part, they sound like Old McDonald’s traditional farm capon, but I also heard the occasional rooster issue forth a pitiful attempt at a cock-a-doodle-do. Not striking or majestic, these crows sounded more like a dying hen than a proud cock.

As far away as Kauai seems to most of us mainlander’s (it is the last island of the Hawaiian state chain), its beauty and splendor is immortalized in acclaimed movies such as Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, South Pacific, and Elvis’s Blue Hawaii. The island may be equally recognized for the destruction and ruin caused by the 1992 hurricane Iniki, which passed over the distant island on September 11th of that year. Director Steven Spielberg, preparing for his final day of shooting Jurassic Park, had to hunker down in his hotel to wait out the storm. Although the other islands in the Hawaiian chain were affected by the storm as well, Kauai was by far the most damaged. The category four (out of five) storm destroyed thousands of homes and left most of the island without power for weeks and even months. It resulted in billions dollars in damage but only six deaths due to accurate forecasts, hurricane warnings and effective preparations.

A lesser-known outcome of the hurricane is the hundreds of chickens that were freed when Iniki blew apart Kauai’s numerous chicken coops. Whether the director of Chicken Run (2000) modeled his movie after the impromptu breakout is unascertained, Iniki’s force initiated a new beginning for the island itself, its inhabitants, and of course its feathered friends.

The chickens were initially brought over by the Filipinos to entertain as fighting cocks as well as to supplement the immigrant’s diet with protein. After they were freed, the chickens have copulated like bunnies and now roam the island, free from predator threats and (mostly) untroubled by human hands. They rule the island, growing fat on fallen fruit and plump insects and announcing their supremacy by cock-a-doodle-doing day and night without respect to the rising sun.

I have heard mixed reports as to whether the locals trap and hunt the wandering fowls. It seems like the roosters’ stomachs would be full of parasites and other nasties and their meat tough and stringy, but I have found several websites that offer tips and recipes on how to pluck, season and cook the feral roosters. As long as they keep them off the restaurant menus…

Some are also captured and groomed for cock fighting, which is an illegal and objectionable pastime. Let the roosters enjoy their freedom, pecking at earwigs and roaming at liberty on the paradisiacal land rather than fighting for their lives (and the amusement of others) in a dim, dusty arena.

If you visit the island, you may find the feral roosters and chickens amusing and utterly obnoxious at the same time. Unaccustomed as I was to see so many of the brightly colored capons roaming without fence or enclosure to confine them, I was delighted at first. But, as I steadily lost sleep from their raucous cavorting I began to view them in a different light and even began to picture them plucked, seasoned and cooked on the dinner table. Even so, they are animals and they do deserve to live as decently as possible, so please, break for them on the road, and leave your shotgun at home.