Bureaucrats appear to have an irrepressible urge to regulate, codify and administer everything in sight, no matter how small and unimportant it may be. British bureaucrats recently decided to make every owner of chickens - even a single chicken in their back yard - register their birds, as a way to track instances of bird flu.
People who keep pet chickens are being urged to register them ahead of a legal deadline designed to prevent fresh outbreaks of bird flu.
Owners who fail to do so by Tuesday [October 1, 2024] risk being fined or even imprisoned, though officials have stressed any punishment would be "proportionate".
Farmers say registration is "vital" to protect the poultry population, but some backyard keepers have branded it "bureaucracy gone crazy".
There's more at the link.
The British are not unknown for their sense of humor. After all, who else, when invited to submit suggested names for a new polar research vessel, would have overwhelmingly voted to call it "Boaty McBoatface"? In the same vein, this demand for poultry registration appears to have inspired thousands of Britons to respond appropriately.
Not everything has gone to plan for the government‘s new requirement for registration of poultry ownership ... a surge in registrations led to the website crashing after people took things a step too far.
Turns out, some people were going so far as to register the roast chickens they’d bought from Tesco [the British equivalent of Walmart], and the government site just couldn’t cope.
Again, more at the link.
Well . . . what did they expect?
Peter
7 comments:
That is funny. Closer to home, one of our neighbors either had a mass escape, or they are allowing their flock to free range. Several of their inmates decided to make a home in our pasture, perching in mesquite trees at night out of the reach of ground predators (but not owls). Its been about two weeks since we noticed their inclusion and so far, their numbers are holding their own.
Who knows - maybe we might get a few eggs out of this is we get their early enough to look.
Wadda bunch o' clucks
Gee, what did they expect?
"Give us more bombers to attack with!
More bombers until the skies are black with..
Eagles..."
(I know, different time, different war, but it's same stupid mentality.)
If a regulatory agency doesn't regulate, it doesn't need to exist. This should go both ways.
Sounds like the gov is playing chicken with the populace, but the people are better at it.
Jean
coming to a neighborhood near you!! We have places here that are as bad as that over pets and livestock, including chickens etc.. Story a year or two about them coming for a ladies pet chickens and killing them all in front of her and her family. I think this was in california?
ok found it
https://reason.com/video/2020/01/14/california-killed-1-2-million-birds-to-stop-a-virus-pet-owners-say-they-were-terrorized/
Some are calling this an act of civil obedience; others suspect fowl play.
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