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This was too incredible not to share...in today's San Francisco Chronicle...
Free to a good home: Amelia, the flying chicken
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, June 26, 2003
San Francisco -- Every day, life gets better and better for Amelia the chicken.
On Wednesday, the amazing bird was resting comfortably on the second floor of the San Francisco animal shelter on Folsom Street, pecking at chicken feed, gazing at the newspaper and waiting for prospective owners to submit their references.
"This is a great chicken, a friendly chicken, a chicken that is ready for a relationship," said Kat Brown, deputy director of the shelter, who has been looking after Amelia since her celebrated flight over the weekend.
Amelia is the bird who was harnessed to 100 helium balloons and sent aloft Saturday by an anonymous prankster apparently imitating a stunt aired on TV to promote a new show.
The chicken wafted into a tangle of power lines in the Western Addition and was rescued by a police marksman, who shot pellets at the balloons and brought down the bird.
Since word got out, Bay Area animal lovers have flooded the shelter with calls, seeking to adopt the chicken. Most people are well meaning, Brown said, but unaware of the nature of the human-chicken commitment.
"A chicken is not clean," Brown said, as Amelia, as if on cue, demonstrated.
"As a pet, (a) chicken is surprisingly high maintenance."
On Friday at high noon, anyone wishing to adopt Amelia is requested to appear in person at the shelter, where interviews will take place.
Only serious applicants with a box in hand, along with the $10 chicken adoption fee, will be considered. A backyard coop is preferred but not mandatory. Those seeking Amelia for her celebrity or nutritive qualities will be rejected.
"We're going to screen people carefully," Brown said. "Amelia has been through so much, that we want her to get the royal treatment from now on."
Since arriving at the shelter, the brown-and-white hen has occupied a prime cage beneath a skylight, just across from Amy the rabbit and a half-dozen guinea pigs.
Amelia spends the day making soft clucking noises, going through page after page of The Chronicle and calmly allowing shelter volunteers to pet her, a rare trait in a chicken.
Ellie Sadler, the animal-control officer who helped rescue the chicken, drops by the cage from time to time. The bird, she said, underwent a "horrible,
traumatic experience."
Like any creature, she said, a chicken deserves respect. A human and a chicken can enjoy a relationship that extends beyond the dining table. In fact,
the shelter has two other chickens -- Thelma and Louise -- available for adoption.
"They're friendly, they make a really nice noise and you don't have to walk them," Sadler said. "And you get to experience the joy of loving another creature."
Police say whoever sent Amelia aloft faces animal-cruelty charges. Meanwhile, chicken fans have been firing off protest letters and faxes to the Fox network, which depicted a balloon-harnessed chicken in a televised ad for what the network called a new show about "unpredictable stunts and hilarious gags."
"We are asking Fox to stop their cruelty or to confine it to those who can dish it back," said Karen Davis, president of the United Poultry Concerns animal-rights group. "Fox ought to be ashamed of themselves."
Kenny Wardell, a spokesman for KTVU, the Fox affiliate in Oakland, said the network has the utmost regard for chickens and has decided to withdraw the ad to avoid further ruffling of feathers.
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3723 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yeah, especially since the guy in the other tower has got his 6.
heh........
k31
-------------------- Pierre St.Marie Stmariegraphics Kalispell,Mt www.stmariegraphics.com ------------------ Plan on knowing everything before I die and time's running out! Posts: 4223 | From: Kalispell,Mt 59903 | Registered: Mar 2000
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A home to roost in Amelia the flying chicken adopted by Concord woman
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, June 28, 2003
San Francisco -- From far and wide they came to San Francisco on Friday, in a quest for Amelia the chicken.
They came from Concord. They came from Portola Valley and Santa Rosa. They came with chicken boxes, chicken cages and chicken feed. They came with resumes, biographies and color glossy photographs.
Fifty people showed up in the lobby of the animal shelter on 15th Street, seeking to adopt the most famous chicken in San Francisco history.
Amelia is the brown-and-white bird rescued last Saturday after being harnessed to 100 helium balloons by an anonymous prankster and floated over San Francisco, apparently in imitation of a TV commercial stunt.
"This chicken exemplifies what we're looking for," said Gene Harris, who was seeking the bird as a pet for students at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont. "We want our kids to persevere. This chicken can bring out those traits and teach sensitivity."
Kathy Feldman of Portola Valley brought photographs of her backyard chicken "spa" to support her application. She said her two chickens, Suzie and Ginger, had the run of a converted child's playhouse, complete with wallpaper, tiled floor, curtains and an electric clock.
"Amelia's had a tough ordeal," Feldman said. "Now it's time for her to come to Portola Valley and take it easy."
Although applications were to be taken at noon, chicken fans began lining up an hour early. Before long, the lobby was jammed with 22 official applicants, many accompanied by children and spouses. Never in the history of the shelter, said a clerk, had the building been so stuffed.
All clamored for Amelia, who was in seclusion in her cage on the second floor, where she had settled down sufficiently from her weekend ordeal to resume laying eggs. A shelter worker brought down a brown one, and its appearance drew a cheer from Amelia's suitors and swains.
Meanwhile, shelter manager Kat Brown sat in her office behind a locked door and waded through the applications. She gazed at photographs and drawings of palatial chicken coops, she sifted through testimonials from children in educational chicken programs, and she read the solemn testimony of prospective owners who pledged never to do anything so crass to Amelia as place her in a stockpot.
A San Francisco man said he needed Amelia as a companion for his current chicken, a bird that had just completed 31 performances in a play about chickens. A Concord boy brought along a videotape of his chicken coop. A Mission District preschool teacher brought 100 photographs of her students cuddling with the school's two chickens, Fluffy and Lady Brahma.
While Brown pondered, the applicants paced.
"I just have to have that chicken," muttered one.
Half an hour later, Brown emerged to announce that all 22 applicants were fully qualified and that a lottery would have to be held. The names of all 22 chicken lovers were written on scraps of paper and placed in a pitcher, and three names were drawn for a final series of interviews.
One by one, the three were summoned to Brown's office for more questioning, in the manner of a Ph.D. oral exam.
Why do you seek the chicken? What experience do you have with chickens? Do you desire Amelia only because she's a famous chicken? Do you understand the nature of the chicken commitment?
It came down to a choice between Irina Stegner of Los Altos ("Animals teach me so much") and Peggy DiPrima of Concord ("My husband says I treat chickens better than I treat him").
At long last, Brown emerged with her decision.
"Peggy DiPrima is our first choice," she said, and DiPrima erupted with a noise louder than that of a Rhode Island Red when a raccoon comes calling.
She filled out paperwork, she paid her $10 chicken adoption fee, and she trooped upstairs and placed Amelia in a cardboard box. But she could not leave the shelter without taking Amelia out of the box into her arms and kissing her three times on the top of her head, while a dozen cameras captured every moment.
"Hello, sweetheart," she said. "Hello, beautiful. Let's go home."
In response to the ministrations, the nonplussed bird did what chickens often do, all over her new benefactress' blouse.
"That's all right, sweetheart," DiPrima said. "I have a towel in the car."
It turned out to be an eventful day for chickens. A Mill Valley animal rights group posted a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever sent Amelia aloft. And a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. representative returned to the Western Addition street corner where Amelia's flight ended last Saturday, in a tangle of high-tension power lines, to urge with utmost solemnity that the stunt never be repeated.
"We're worried that there could be more incidents," said PG&E spokesman Jason Alderman, holding the utility's first-ever chicken press conference. "We were happy to save the chicken, but we don't want to have to do it again."
Only one reporter showed up at the press conference, perhaps because President Bush was at that moment arriving at San Francisco International Airport.
"I understand," Alderman said. "I don't begrudge reporters for covering the president instead of a chicken."
-------------------- Kimberly Zanetti Purcell www.amethystProductivity.com Folsom, CA email: Kimberly@AmethystProductivity.com
“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” AA Milne Posts: 3723 | From: Folsom, CA | Registered: Dec 2001
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