Avant-garde artist Andy Warhol once claimed that, in the future, every human being would achieve 15 minutes of fame. But he never said a word about roosters.
More recent transplants to Key West seem to believe that the free-roaming poultry population, and the near-constant crowing of roosters, is a contemporary issue.
They’re wrong. Several decades ago, the island’s roosters were equally prolific — and getting so much publicity that I figured they must have hired a high-powered PR agency.
It began with quiet complaints.
“The roosters in my neighborhood are terrible!” a friend said to me over morning coffee at Pepe’s Café. “Crowing all night and keeping me awake.”
Though I didn’t really mind the resident chickens and roosters, I nodded understandingly. Certainly they seemed more visible — and more vocal — than usual.
So too was the island’s growing anti-poultry faction. Just days before that coffee date, my neighbor, a debonaire gray-haired former Hollywood producer, had arrived at my door to praise my gentle beagle, Captain — because Captain, much to his own surprise, had caught a chicken in my Old Town backyard.
“This is for my hero, Captain,” the producer said in his cultured voice, handing me the largest dog bone I had ever seen. “And I’ll give him $5 apiece for any others he captures.”
Of course, the increased crowing might have been sparked by a dastardly chicken murder committed by a former city commissioner. The commissioner, who I won’t name here, had been harassing the breed by posting a sign on his fence that read “FREE CHICKENS (Demon Poultry) Catch and Carry.”
Then came the murder — an event that startled the entire island.
The black-feathered victim, the commissioner asserted, had been inciting the poultry population in his neighborhood to riot, depriving him and other humans of necessary sleep. So he shot it.
According to a high-profile newspaper report, he then ate the luckless bird.
Although county officials considered charging him, ultimately no action was taken. It was then that the PR escalated — resulting, I still believe, from a rooster-led retaliatory campaign.
First, a regional news magazine featured a 1,500-word article that praised Key West roosters’ flying abilities and vocal virtuosity. It even publicly called the commissioner a chicken murderer.
After that, the articles came thick and fast. In a local editorial column, a writer spent 900 words chronicling his losing battle with a formerly friendly chicken. Another piece focused on a rooster owner who enjoyed taking her pet for walks through Key West’s Old Town on a leash — and squatting down in her backyard for a good old-fashioned crowing session with her feathered friend.
Eventually, you could hardly open a newspaper without some mention of rooster-related activities. Though it was well before the social media era, the chicken faction’s fame spread far and wide.
Supporting my belief that it was driven by a PR agency’s work, poultry came off far better than people in most published accounts — with many pieces depicting supposedly intelligent humans driven to distraction by five-pound KFC rejects.
In fact, the birds began to assume an almost mythical aspect as their files of press clippings swelled.
With the passage of time, it became clear that the poultry PR campaign had achieved its objective. These days, despite occasional grumblings from Key West newcomers, the local chickens are widely lauded for contributing to the colorful atmosphere of the island.
Visitors squeal in delight when they spot them, pulling out smartphones and snapping photo after photo to post to social media accounts. Cars routinely stop on downtown streets, their drivers waiting patiently as hens lead their chicks across the asphalt.
As for me, I’ve come to admire the chickens’ tenacity (and media savvy). And if they should ever need PR assistance again — I’m available.
