Getting off the plane at the Lihue Airport in Kauai was pretty uneventful but we quickly discovered something about the island that was a bit unexpected.
Chickens are everywhere. Seriously – they are everywhere. There was not a place that we visited on the island that we did not see chickens roaming around freely.
Of course we had to check it out. And I also had to stop taking pictures of chickens because it was getting a little bit ridiculous. There are a couple of theories as to why there are so many chickens. One school of thought places the burden on the Polynesians who came and brought chickens with them. Another more likely reason is that when Hurricane Iniki came in 1992 many of the chicken coops on the island were demolished and the chickens were released into the wild as a result. As we know with any animal they are going to reproduce and that is what happened.
There are basically no natural predators so they continue to multiply. Locals share that they are fairly unappetizing to eat so of course they just keep multiplying. The joke is that if you boil a Kauai wild chicken and a lava rock together, the lava rock will be easier to chew.
While they were an oddity and something unexpected they did add to the charm of the island a little bit. However…that crowing. All the time. Everywhere. I wonder if you ever really get used to that. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section and remember to Comment for a Cause for our recipient for January – Project: Music Heals Us.
7 Comments
Leave a commentThey are very pretty chickens. I’m sure you do get used to the noise eventually.
I love hearing the crowing of roosters. But only when the sun rises, not all night/day long!!
Reminds me of Key West. There’s a lot of chickens running around there as well.
When you think of Hawaii you (or I) don’t think of chickens everywhere. lol I am sure it was very different. O course I have heard of wild animal but not wild chickens. They are very pretty though.
Did you know that the chickens that the Polynesians brought with them wherever they went have been feral in the wild so long that they are considered an established species? They are now known as “red jungle fowl.” The Papeete airport in Tahiti (which is open to the street) had its own resident fowl that would pick up any crumbs you dribbled from your baguette.
They are noisy, and ubiquitous, all over Polynesia. And, believe it or not, they aren’t regularly eaten. They were running all over the yard at the place we stayed on Easter Island, and we asked the owner if they ever ate them, and he said “never!” Go figure…
And, I can’t believe we didn’t take any photos of them, as you did. They were quite entertaining, especially on Easter Island, where we made fast friends with a couple of hens with numerous peeps, several pullets, and way too many roosters that roamed the yard in front of our porch. They readily ate anything we chucked at them, and it was a lot of fun to watch the group dynamics concerning food. One of the roosters actually was an altruist (although I’m sure he had ulterior motives), trying to interest the chicks in food he had broken up for them…
You got some great pictures of these colourful chickens. The Portuguese consider them good luck. (maybe other cultures do too.)