Free-Range Chickens on 125th Street

(Photo: Corey Kilgannon/The New York Times)


This article appeared in today's New York Times. Newsworthy. Enjoy.

Kyle


September 15, 2008, 12:29 pm

By Corey Kilgannon

Why did the chicken cross 125th Street? That’s what some Harlem residents are trying to figure out. Last Thursday, a bunch of chickens and a big white turkey suddenly appeared near the corner of 125th Street and Second Avenue and promptly began pecking around in traffic.

The chickens were loosely gathered in a vacant lot next to the gas station on the northwest corner, but they were hardly confined to the lot. They roamed the gas station and strayed all over the sidewalk and the street. They darted in front of traffic and generally amused passers-by and the people waiting at the nearby bus stop.

“You see a new group every so often,” said Monique Dudley, a paraprofessional for the Department of Education who watched the chickens as she waited for the crosstown bus and began taking photographs of the chickens with her phone, to send to friends.

“I have to send my friends pictures or else they would never believe we have chickens on 125th Street.”

Frankie Quinones, 42, of Manhattan, a hospital administrator, said, “I don’t know why they’re here, but the people around here seem to look out for them.”

“They better not go too far, or they’ll be chicken soup,” he said. “You see that big turkey? I hope he’s not around here by Thanksgiving.”

Don Newcomb, a construction worker renovating an apartment building across the street from the lot, said that “some guy” keeps dumping chickens in the area.

“This crazy guy keeps buying them from the market — some animal-right guy, but I think he’s messed up in the head — and he keeps leaving them here,” Mr. Newcomb said. “He thinks he’s saving them, but it’s not like they’re safe around here. Somebody told me the hawks swoop down on them, too. Eventually, the Health Department comes, or whatever, the A.S.P.C.A., and they pick them up.”

“They run out in the road, I’ve already seen two of them get run over,” he said. “It’s a shame, because they’re cool chickens.”

The Center for Animal Care and Control, which handles such problems for the city, has been repeatedly called to the 125th Street spot because of complaints about chickens, said Richard P. Gentles, a spokesman for the group. In the summer of 2007, its officials recovered 25 chickens and a turkey. On Aug. 20, they recovered 13 chickens, he said, which were taken to farms outside the city.

Chicken complaints are not uncommon in New York, he said.

“We usually get one or two, but to get 25 is a lot,” he said. He said that it was not known where the chickens come from, but that “when you get a stray chicken, it usually comes from a live poultry market in the area.”

The agency recovered 354 chickens in 2007, he said, compared with 425 rabbits and 396 raccoons. The most rescued animal in the city, however, is turtles — 754 of them in 2007. “I guess a lot of people have turtles,” Mr. Gentles said.

Joseph Pentangelo, assistant director for humane law enforcement at the A.S.P.C.A., said his agency had responded twice to anonymous complaints of chickens in the area.

“It’s illegal to keep a rooster in the city, but chickens are not illegal,” he said. “Abandoning any animal is a crime, and chickens can’t really fend for themselves in an urban environment. I’ve heard of groups buying them from slaughterhouses and repatriating them, but to place them on the streets of New York is creating a hazard for the chickens and for drivers who have to dodge them in the streets.”

An animal care official said that a note was left on a nearby fence. “Please do not bother the animals,” it said.

The note continued: “I removed them from the chicken market and they are sickly and unfit to eat. Please provide them with food and water if you think they need it.”

A phone number was listed. A man who answered that line said that he was Alex LaForte, 38, a New York native, and that he had been feeding and caring for the chickens for almost two years. He said he had kept them in a henhouse in the vacant lot, but it was taken down.

Mr. LaForte said he picked up castoff food from supermarkets and delivered it on his bicycle each night. “I’m just doing all I can to help them survive another night out there,” said Mr. LaForte, who said he had no job or home of his own and was staying with friends and relatives in East Harlem.

He added: “I don’t know who’s putting them out there, probably some rescue group, but whoever it is is saving them from suffering. I’ve seen the way they’re mistreated and made to suffer in those slaughterhouses.”

“We’re all struggling through these hard times, and the chickens are struggling to survive, too,” he said. “They find freedom on the city streets, and once they find freedom, they can eat and survive, rather than be put in a pen or slaughtered and eaten. I’m a struggler, and I try to help others struggling. If I feed them, they’ll survive.”

The original article can be found here.