When you live in a rural area, there are lots of positive things that make your day enjoyable. My favorites are being able to look out my windows and see the snow-covered Sierra Nevadas in the distance. I do not live in a canyon of wall-to-wall houses.
Another thing I appreciate is having a neighborhood with “history.” Many of us haved lived here for generations.
On the negative side, rural inhabitants in Sacramento County are constantly assaulted by the insanities of our mostly-urban county and its government. Our own supervisor, Don Nottoli, represents us very well. He also grew up in the area where he still lives. But he is only 1 of 5 supervisors.
Last night was an experience of both the best and the worst about living where I do. In an attempt to stifle cockfighting, the county wants to pass an ordinance against raising “roosters.” If you have more than 5 roosters, no matter how large your parcel of property, they want to require you to get a permit from the county. This ignores the fact that we are in an ag zone.
Last night the county (in the form of reps from the sheriff’s department and animal control) presented its plan at the local CPAC meeting. A CPAC is a board of folks who have monthly meetings to hear comments from the public on local planning issues mostly. This meeting was in Wilton.
The county told everyone how awful cockfighting is. They tied it to drugs and mayhem and told us how hard and costly it is to catch the perpetrators. To keep more than 5 roosters, you’d have to apply for a permit, animal control would come and inspect your premises to determine if you raise fighting cocks. This, they claim, will stop cockfighting and that, in turn, will stop methamphetamine use, gambling, the spread of poultry diseases that are a threat to humans, and all sorts of evil things. All the cockfighters will move somewhere else.
I do not condone cockfighting. I do know some people who raise American Game Fowl, and they are upright, responsible members of the community who take very good care of their birds. It’s not illegal to raise game birds, it’s illegal to fight them.
I do know that when I go to the feed store, I have a wider choice of feeds because of the people who raise game fowl. Without them, I’d only be able to buy layena or meat bird feed, neither of which are sufficient to raise show birds, in my opinion. And there is a display of products (with game birds on the labels) in small bottles that I can afford to buy to take care of my birds: medicines and vitamin supplements, for example. Otherwise, I’d have to buy commercial quantities.
And I do know that requiring me and everyone like me to get a permit is not going to have any effect on cockfighting. There are two types of animals at cockfights: chickens and humans. It’s not the chickens who gamble and sell drugs.
Here are some other things to consider:
• Last week the law enforcement people made arrests at a big cockfight in Oakland. This was in an industrial area, I think, the article said the birds were found in the trunks of several cars. I doubt any of them were raised in Oakland.
• In California, cockfighting is a misdemeanor. Perpetrators are caught, fined, and go on their way. The legislature does not want it to be a felony because our prisons are already overcrowded. I haven’t compared the official numbers, but it appears to me that Sacramento County’s rooster ordinance would fine me more for raising unauthorized roosters than it fines people who are actually caught at cockfights.
• The county’s ordinance claims that it is attempting to stifle the spread of disease and protect the public. One of the sheriff’s dept. representatives talked about people dying from bird flu and how she would hate to die that way. We don’t have bird flu in the U.S. Very few humans have died from it worldwide. None of the other poultry diseases (that I know of) are spread to humans. AND do they think that only male chickens have poultry diseases? You could have NO roosters, but 200 hens running around (euphemistically referred to as “free range”) exposed to wild birds and migratory waterfowl. This is still not a health threat to humans. In the event of a disease like the Newcastle epidemic in Southern California a few years ago, all those chickens were eradicated to keep the disease from wiping out the COMMERCIAL poultry industry. The disease had economic repercussions, nothing to do with public safety.
So now I go back to why I appreciate living where I do. The people who live here know the facts. Not only folks in the audience who came to comment, but the members of the CPAC. They pointed out the problems, the inconsistencies, the misguided assumptions, and then said the bottom line is we don’t feel it’s right to force limitations on US that are not going to solve the problem.
The county said, “Oh, we don’t intend to harass anyone who isn’t doing anything illegal. You just apply for a permit - it’s really easy, you can do it online - then animal control will come and inspect your facilities, and all you have to do after that is renew the permit every year.”
One of the board members said, “What you fail to understand is that we don’t WANT a permit.”
Local rancher Jay Schneider (who I went to grammar school with) spoke very eloquently about this. When you are doing something basic like raising a few chickens, which is not illegal in our area, and have to go to the government for permission to do it, you are giving up a freedom.
I’d like to add that when you’re out in the country raising a few chickens despite threats from raccoons, opossums, hawks, owls, dogs, and feral cats, and doing your best to keep them healthy and alive, the last thing you need is input from some city schmuck whose only poultry education was watching “Chicken Run” and eating at KFC.
The next trial will be at the board of supervisors on April 7.
