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UPC Defends Delmarva Resident’s Right to Keep Her Chickens and Ducks
“‘Elsa’ and ‘Evelyn’ have been Elizabeth Fisher’s backyard companions for the past two years. That is about to change, though. . . .” Read the article:
www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910110301
For readers unfamiliar with this region of the US, Elizabeth Fisher and her birds live in Berlin, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. Also known as the Delmarva Peninsula, the Eastern Shore, a narrow strip of land 50 miles wide and 150 miles long, holds 571,263,000 chickens in 5,100 buildings owned by Perdue, Tyson, and three regional poultry companies.
Karen Davis’s Letter to the Editor, The Daily Times (Salisbury, MD), Oct. 15, 2009
“Complaints about pet hens and ducks puzzling”
www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910150388
I am puzzled by the resistance to Elizabeth Fisher’s desire to have her pet fowl on her residential property in Berlin. As I understand it, Fisher is not in the business of keeping poultry. Rather, she has kept two hens and three ducks as pets for the past two years. She isn’t breeding her birds or commercializing them or their eggs. She is not adding to the population of unwanted animals or allowing her birds to roam the neighborhood and dig up the neighbors’ flowerbeds.
With so many unwanted animals on the Eastern Shore and elsewhere, and so many people who mistreat and abandon their animals, why should Fisher and her fortunate birds be penalized? She seems to be an example of what a responsible pet owner should be. If she is not waking up the community with a flock of crowing roosters each morning and her birds are confined to their own living quarters near the house, what is the complaint?
It seems strange this could be an issue with so many urgent problems demanding the attention of law enforcement. I hope Fisher will find a way to keep her birds safe. I applaud and support her effort to protect her pets. - Karen Davis
Karen Davis is president of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. United Poultry Concerns is located on the Delmarva Peninsula on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
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