What's for Dinner in Hawaii: Feral Chickens

The crowing starts well before the sun rises over Mason Aiona's home in Hawaii. But the 3am rooster alarm isn't what bothers the retiree the most. It's spending the day shooing wild chickens that dig holes in his yard, listening to constant squawking and flapping, and scolding people who feed the feral birds at a park steps from his house. "It's a big problem," he tells the AP of the chickens waddling between his Honolulu house and the city park. "And they're multiplying." Communities across the state have been dealing with pervasive fowl for years. Honolulu has spent thousands of dollars trapping them, to little avail. Now state lawmakers are considering possible solutions—including measures that would let residents kill feral chickens, deem them a "controllable pest" on public land in Honolulu, and fine people for feeding them or releasing them in parks.

But one person's nuisance is another's cultural symbol, a dynamic that has also played out in Miami and other cities with populations of wild chickens. Kealoha Pisciotta, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner and animal advocate, disagrees with killing feral chickens simply because they're a nuisance. Some chickens today descended from those brought to the islands by early Polynesian voyagers, she said. "The moa is very significant," she said, using the Hawaiian word for chicken. "They were on our voyaging, came with us." The Hawaiian Humane Society opposes letting residents kill the chickens "as a means of population control unless all other strategies have been exhausted."

Chicken eradication bills have failed over the years, said Rep. Scot Matayoshi, a Democrat representing the Honolulu suburb of Kaneohe who backs the idea of controlling the birds' numbers. "I think there are people who are taking it more seriously now," he said. Still, wild chickens aren't likely to make a cheap dinner. The meat is tougher than poultry raised for harvesting, and the feral birds can be a vector of disease. Aiona has grown tired of spending his retirement telling park-goers to stop feeding the chickens. And while he doesn't recommend that anyone eat them, he welcomes anyone who wants one to come get it. "No charge," he said.