A response on the Reptile Gardens Chicken Controversy

I JUST caught a quote being posted on the Blog in response to the goofy people from out of state who are protesting the oppression of chickens at Reptile Gardens. (I prefer my chicken fried rather than oppressed.).

If you saw my blogpost a little while back, I was publicly expressing that I hoped they weren't going to cave to these goofs.

From US Newswire: United Poultry Concerns Urges South Dakota’s Reptile Gardens Tourist Attraction to Drop Chicken 'Basketball'

UPC urged Reptile Gardens to honor its claim to educate the public about the animals it houses by closing chicken basketball and tic tac toe the same as it closed its other trained animal shows. UPC asked Reptile Gardens to develop alternative programs that teach respect for the relationship that chickens and other birds share with reptiles in the course of evolution.

and..

Want to hear something that's not funny from the group's founder?

"The deaths of thousands of people ... reduced the amount of pain and suffering in the world since they wouldn't be around to eat more chicken."

- Karen Davis, Founder United Poultry Concerns

(In reference to the attack on the World Trade Center, New York, Sept. 11, 2001; at the Animal Rights Conference, Washington, DC, June 27, 2003.)

Reptile Gardens - right or wrong, you owe it to South Dakota not to cave to these nuts.

Anyway, in response this morning under the original post, This comment was posted:

At 9:47 AM, Jeff Brockelsby said...

As corporate treasurer and unofficial spokesperson for Reptile Gardens, I would just like to reassure the good folks who are following this vitally important issue that RGs has no intention of retiring our basketball and tic-tac-toe playing chickens. We discussed it at our Board of Directors meeting this week and unanamously agreed to maintain both acts. In fact, we've been teaching our feathered performers to play more challenging games and hope to have our chess grandmaster, Albert Hen-stein, ready to play the IBM computer soon. Unfortuntaely, though, we may be losing our star power forward, Michael Jord-hen, to the NBA draft. He doesn't score a lot, but he really stands his ground in the paint and takes a lot of charging fowls.

But seriously, our chickens are well treated, get plenty of water and rations and even have a 100% employer-paid health plan. Let's face it, chickens are not the sharpest crayons in the ornithological box, and it takes a lot of man/woman hours to get one trained at a sport. It is to our best interest to make sure they're well taken care of.

Reptile Gardens, good for you! It's about time that people started standing up to these off the wall groups and calling them on the ridiculous things they come up with. I'll tell you what - this almost demands that a trip to Reptile Gardens is in my summer itinerary.

That, and I'm going to throw some chicken on the grill tonight just for Karen Davis.

As I watch it sizzle over hot coals, it's to remind me of her final reward after that crack supporting the murder of thousands of victims on 9/11/2001.