Population Out of Control in San Diego : Zoo to Bear Down, Rein In Its Roving Chickens

SAN DIEGO —  They come up out of the canyons just before feeding time, raid the bear biscuits, and foul the monkey chow.

They hang out at the bus-loading area, eyeing the tourists in hopes of mooching some popcorn. Occasionally, one gets run over, ruining everyone’s day.

They carry disease and are prime suspects in the recent deaths of three rare Chinese pheasants. Yet they are among the most loved attractions at America’s best-known zoo.

The San Diego Zoo has a problem: The free-running chicken population--actually a variety of exotic and domestic fowl given free run of the zoo, providing color to the landscape and close-up photographic subjects to visitors--is out of control.

Seeking Solutions

But what is the most cost-effective and humane way of reining it in without outraging tourists and chicken partisans on the staff?

For three months, zoo officials have wrestled with the problem in anguished meetings of administrators, veterinarians, curators and public relations staffers. Now, they have emerged with a solution--a fair and humane compromise, zoo officials believe.

Sometime in the next few months, they will round up the 500 chickens, 120 Australian brush turkeys, and assorted peafowl and guinea fowl. There will be a massive sweep of the 100-acre zoo by keepers armed with nets and traps, zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett said Monday.

Every bird will go directly to the zoo hospital for quarantine and a health check. Then a small selection of the healthiest--30 pairs of chickens, 10 peacocks, and 6 male guinea fowl--will be “relocated” into the zoo’s three canyons.

Peahens will be banished, Jouett said. The brush turkeys will be caged.

Off-Limit Areas

In addition, zoo officials intend to set aside “chicken-free zones,” which will include the primate propagation pads, the hospital and the avian propagation center. Also off limits will be the forage warehouse, pheasant exhibits, and the bus-loading area.

“If possible, we’re going to make the general vicinity around the food stands a chicken-free zone,” Jouett added. The birds are fairly bold, he said, and there are stories that they have attacked children in an effort to steal their lunches.

Any chickens found in chicken-free zones will be politely returned to the canyons.

As for those birds that don’t pass muster, the zoo will attempt to find them homes in other zoos or with “suitable individuals.” If not, there will be a last resort: death by lethal injection.

Many of the chickens, Jouett said, are in fact Indian and Burmese “jungle fowl” descended from 27 birds let loose at the zoo in 1942 by K. C. Lint, then curator of birds. Lint intended them as an added attraction--colorful, surprising and within reach.

Easter Visitors

But the jungle fowl proliferated out of control, with the help of outsiders. Every year, people dump Easter chicks over the zoo’s fence. Over the years, they and the jungle fowl interbred.

The prolific chickens and their offspring are among the favorites at the zoo, Jouett said. “You see those adorable chicks--everyone wants to stop and feed them popcorn and take their picture. People with thousands of dollars of camera equipment are in the zoo with the most exotic wildlife in the world, and here they are lying on the sidewalk taking pictures.”