Miami – The flamenco, the pelicans, the herons and the parrots are just some of the wild birds that call Miami home, but they are the roosters, chickens and chicks that have come to govern the chicken coop in recent years.
Not only are they found in residential neighborhoods such as Little Havana, Little Haiti and Wynwood, bird families are also making their home between high buildings and government buildings in the center. And although some people find that song is a nuisance, many have adopted the rooster as an unofficial pet of the city.
Paul George, the historian resident of the HistoryMami Museum, said that chickens are closely related to people who have moved to Miami during the decades. For a long time, the domesticated birds remained mainly in the rear courtyards, but George began to notice his wild cousins wandering in public areas about 20 years ago.
He said that chickens have a cultural connection with people who grew in the rural areas of Cuba and other parts of Latin America: “these chickens and roosters have always had.”
Wild chickens can be found in many Florida communities, from Key West to Tampa and San Agustín, along with other great cities in the United States, such as New Orleans, Houston and Los Angeles.
But Little Miami Havana really adopted birds as a symbol in 2002 when the 6 -foot fiberglass rooster statues (2 meters) began to appear outside the stores and restaurants along Street eight, which is Spanish for 8th Street, as part of a campaign to celebrate the culture of the area.
More than two decades later, dozens of the statues painted colored, designed by the late artist Pedro Damián, continue to attract tourists looking for fun opportunities for photos.
The owner Jakelin Llaguna, from Little Havana Visitors Center, a memories store along Calle Ocho, said that the community is largely to the inhabitants of the birds of birds, who feed on businesses and local parks.
“The neighbors have received them,” said Llaguna. “Therefore, they don’t care if they are in their backyard or on their front grass. No one gets into them, they are our pet.”
Llaguna said that the song of the roosters at dawn symbolizes renewal.
“The Cubans arrived in Little Havana when the revolution reached Cuba,” said Llaguna. “They settled in this neighborhood, so they had a new beginning in Little Havana.”
The Llaguna store is full of merchandise of Gallo, which includes shirts, hats, glasses and magnets.
“Everyone wants a rooster,” Llaguna said. “They want to take home a memory. They want to have a fun memory. And the rooster has become that.”
As the wild roosters spread, they could soon face the competition of the invasive royal turkeys that have taken over neighboring communities such as Coconut Grove and Coral Gables.
“Royal turkeys have very bad encouragement,” George said. “They are quite bad, and they tend to be much larger than chickens, and make a lot of noise.”
But George is more concerned that the development and gentrification in major neighborhoods can lead to the disappearance of their feathered residents. When 50 -year -old houses are replaced by new condominiums, George is not sure if people who spend more than $ 1 million for a house will tolerate strong birds.
“Even with hurricane windows, I don’t think many of these people endure it as the neighborhood becomes richer.” George said. “And I think they will really rely on the city’s code application for it.”
The legal status of the roosters and chickens is somewhat cloudy. Both the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County have ordinances that regulate strictly or completely prohibit birds of live corral in residential areas. Meanwhile, birds roam freely between offices, public and court parks.
When asked about the birds, both the city officials and the county described their presence as a problem of compliance with the code and sent Associated Press to their living animal ordinances.
The resident of Little Havana, Donato Ramos Martínez, enjoys having the roosters and chickens around and even feeds them near the monument of the Bay of Pigs, outside of Street Ocho.
“The rooster is the perfect animal for someone to wake up, because they begin to sing around 4 am, from 4 to 5 am,” said Ramos Martínez in Spanish. “And it is an attractive animal that tourists, both young and old, are excited and take a picture, do you know what I mean?”
“And then I don’t understand,” he added, “why there are some, sorry for my language, some idiots who do not want roosters, chickens or chickens in the street.”
