Struttin' his Stuff

One of the first things that I discovered I had overlooked when choosing our rental house in Makawao is the noisy neighbor. This is not a human neighbor - not someone you could go have a friendly chat with, and ask nicely...Say!...you wouldn't mind keeping it down a little bit at 3 am, would you?

No this neighbor is a rooster. A colorful, strutting, hen-chasing, night-crowing rooster. I don't have a picture of this actual rooster because I'm afraid if I got close enough to snap a photo I might also snap his scrawny neck. But he looks like this:

So this here rooster (who belongs to our landlord) has the run of the place, which pretty much means the whole two acres around our landlord's house, our house, and the neighbors' house right in front of us. It might seem pastoral, but when this guy winds up at 1 am during a full moon night, and then keeps up a regular rumpus until about 7 am, it can sure mess up a good night's sleep. Most mornings he sleeps in til about 3 or 3:30 am so I found that if I sleep with earplugs and slap a pillow over my head for a couple of hours, I can just about tune him out.

I can only be thankful we only have one of these close by to deal with. Cockfighting is big sport in Hawaii and just a few blocks away, there is a whole rooster planned community that pretty much looks exactly like this:

Now, I can only imagine what" it must be like to live next door to this. But as a popular bumpersticker reads around here: "Chicken fighting is not a crime. Please respect local culture." However, according to the U.S. Humane Society:

Cockfighting is illegal in every state and the District of Columbia, and any animal fighting activity that affects interstate commerce is a felony under the federal Animal Welfare Act. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have made cockfighting a felony offense. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia prohibit the possession of cocks for fighting. And 41 states and the District of Columbia prohibit being a spectator at cockfights.

So actually, yes, chicken fighting IS a crime. But in Hawaii, it is not a crime to possess a fighting rooster, be a spectator at a rooster fight, or possess rooster fighting "implements." If you are busted for cockfighting in Hawaii, it's a misdemeanor with maximum jail time of one year, and maximum fine of $2,000. Hawaii ranks 47th out of 51 for severity of cockfighting penalties - above Kentucky, Idaho, Mississippi and Alabama (where the maximum fine is $50).

Our landlord's rooster is not a fighter - he's a lover. A loud one.  So I got to thinking - I can't be the only person who is losing sleep because of a rowdy rooster. Hasn't anyone thought about coming up with a genetically-engineered rooster that doesn't crow? I did a little searching, but got distracted by this Foghorn Leghorn cartoon.