Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

… well, because she was flung there when the tractor-trailer that was carrying her and hundreds of her sisters rolled over in the middle of downtown Salem.

No, really. An entire semi-truck full of Foster Farms chickens tipped over in the middle of Salem today, and chickens (and chicken manure) were everywhere.

The driver was fine – but about half of the chickens on the trailer weren’t so fortunate. Other photos that were provided by the Statesman Journal (www.statesmanjournal.com) showed the aftermath and the cleanup effort which lasted well into the afternoon hours even though the crash occurred early this morning.

Apparently, speed may have been a factor in the accident and the load seems to have shifted, causing the truck to tip onto its side – sending the cages that the chickens were being carried in tumbling across the road – breaking open scattering live chickens and corpses everywhere.

All photos credit Zach Urness (Statesman Journal)

Foster Farms issued the following statement:

TRUCK ACCIDENT IN SALEM, OREGON July 9, 2013

This morning, a Foster Farms contracted trailer truck transporting chickens was involved in an accident on Commercial Street in downtown Salem, Ore. The driver is in good condition but was transported to a local hospital as a precaution. No other people were involved in the accident. The driver works for a hauling company contracted by Foster Farms, she is not a Foster Farms employee. We are cooperating fully with local police as they investigate the accident. The birds are being hand-collected and per USDA regulation, any fatalities are disposed of and do not enter the food supply.

We are committed to the safety of live poultry during transport and have maintained an exemplary safety record. We regret that the accident occurred and promptly took steps to rectify the situation.

I don’t know this for certain, but it seems they were likely shipping chickens from their Canby, Oregon production plant and I can only assume that these birds were on their way to becoming Corn Dogs in the Corvallis, Oregon Corndog processing plant.

The people of Salem have been quick to jump on the “EWW!! LOOK AT THAT! How could you show pictures of dead chickens?!?” bandwagon on the Statesman Journal’s comments section, like they don’t have a clue that that small piece of Foster Farms chicken breast that they have with their health conscious lunch – once looked like one of those white birds in the streets of Salem. (Granted – likely less contorted and lying in the middle of the street…)

We have taught Thing 1 and Thing 2 from early on where their food comes from. I fish, I hunt, we keep chickens – and it’s important to me that they understand that when we have meat, in order for them to eat, something else had to die, and not to take that for granted, and not to be wasteful.

Sadly – this was horribly wasteful, and yet another reason why I would desperately like to see us utilize less large scale agriculture, and switch over to more numerous family farms, backyard flocks to sustain the family, or at least use sustainable agricultural practices such at those at Polyface Farms and the numerous echoes of their strategy to produce for these large scale operations.

At the same time – we have to put our money where our wishes lie. This goes right back to what we talked about with Monsanto. We are getting what we pay for. Every time I give in and buy a corn dog – I’m voting with my dollars to continue this type of large scale agricultural practice… we as consumers have to be willing to stand up for what we believe in not just in words but in actions.

So why did the chicken cross the road – it seems that she didn’t really have much of a choice…

… Good thing we do.

Safari – it’s not just a web browser anymore…

Many of you have likely seen the articles recently on the huge bumblebee die-offs in Wilsonville, Oregon and Hillsboro, Oregon where as far as anyone can tell – blooming linden trees were sprayed with the insecticide Safari, which led to a massive die off (on the order of 50,000+ bumblebees, and other honeybees). In case you hadn’t…

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/06/state_agency_temporarily_bans.html

http://portlandtribune.com/wlt/95-news/155347-pesticide-causes-largest-bumblebee-die-off-ever

There are numerous other articles that a quick Google search will allow you to track down, but in our little piece of Oregon – this has been pretty big news this past week.

I personally started keeping bees because of what I was reading regarding Colony Collapse disorder, and the dying off of pollinators worldwide. (I’d be lying if I didn’t also tell you that our own honey wasn’t a motivator) but realistically – out of the 100 most important staple food crops in the world, which provide 90% of the world’s population’s food – bees pollinate 71 of the 100.

Bumblebees and Honeybees are therefore extremely important organisms (and fascinating to watch)

Which is why when I see things like what happened in Wilsonville and Hillsboro, I get upset and frustrated.

Imagine my ire when I received a phone call from my wife today while I was at work, telling me – after work, you’ve got to get down to Chemeketa and Court Streets… there are a ton of dead bumblebees. Now – Chemeketa and Court are approximate 2.5 miles from the house – within the range of our girls if they want to work hard – I don’t know if there are any other Lindens on our end of town that could have been treated… but downtown Salem has a bunch of Linden trees, they line both sides of Chemeketa Street, line the front of the Capitol and down towards the courthouse on Court Street, and are sprinkled throughout the cities downtown. (They smell amazing right now – kind of a limey honey scent) which is why the trees are literally buzzing with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of bees, bumble and honey.

They’re all over the place.

Unfortunately, littering the sidewalks of the city today (not nearly in the numbers that we saw in Wilsonville and Hillsboro – at least not yet) were numerous dead bumblebees and honeybees. (The ratio of bumblebees to honeybees was significantly higher)

Now – basic principle of science… Correlation is not Causation. There are numerous bumblebees in the area, they are all pollinating these Linden Trees, sometimes bees die, or get so laden that they fall to the ground where they can get smashed – it’s possible that is all that happened, but with what happened in Portland, same trees, same bees, only variable is whether Safari was applied… I suppose time will tell. I have a call into the guy with the city who is in charge of the spraying to see when these were last sprayed and with what.

I took some photos which I’ll place below. I also took a couple of videos of some odd behavior in the bees. One bumblebee just kind of wandered around aimlessly on the ground in circles, another was sitting in the grass doing repetitive cleaning behaviors when prodded. Most of the bees I came across today where clearly dead and laying on the sidewalk, in the bark dust, or in the grass, or twitching their last death throes. I probably counted a total of 50-75 between those two streets. Again, nothing like up north, but concerning nonetheless.

One of the first dead bumblebees I found.

2 within 18 inches of one another.

One of the Linden Trees in Question

Bumblebee wandering around aimlessly:

Repetitive Cleaning Behaviors

Hopefully nothing more than a few dead bees that were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not the beginning of something more significant, only time will tell.