"It is well said in the proverb: A golden rooster for a golden year. If you can capture the golden rooster and bring it home, you will have youth and fortune year after year; it will allow you to buy land to build a house; capturing the rooster and bringing it home means this year your son will find a daughter-in-law, and that this year you will have a nephew...."

At the sound of the shot, adults and children alike pound on to the field to catch a spring rooster. This roundup has also succeeded in generating a conflict between culture and ecological protection.

Most kids today have only eaten chicken, but have never seen one strutting about. It's great excitement to chase these birds, but are they having a good time as well? （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

If you can't catch it, how can you eat it?

"Throwing fire crackers at them and setting off in hot pursuit--how would you like it if you were a rooster? Moreover, according to clear stipulations set by the Council of Agriculture for protection of domesticated poultry, it is forbidden to use violence or whipping to chase them into the henhouse or to abuse them by grabbing them upside down, carrying them upside down, or piling them one on top of the other or any other abusive action. This behavior of yours is illegal!" This is a text read out at the Cultural Festival open forum by a young girl concerned about the treatment of animals.

"In a rural society, whenever there's a holiday guests will come. Mother would always tell us to go run down a chicken to treat the guests. That's a memory from childhood that many people must share. Anyway, if we didn't catch chickens and kill chickens, where would you get poultry to eat?" retorts a resident of Hsienkung District who participated in the festival activities unapologetically. These local folks, who went onto the field in their rubber sandals and bamboo farmers' hats, simply can't understand why catching a rooster would cause so many people to raise such a fuss.

The world is for us to use?

Poultry and livestock are hardly protected species. The ultimate object of raising them is certainly to consume them. Catching them and killing them are certainly part of the process. Still, some ways are more humane than others: There's the grandmother who whispers a quiet prayer before killing the bird that it will come back as the son or daughter of a wealthy family. And some people are switching over to slaughter by electrocution to reduce the pain suffered by the creatures. The Rev. Lu Chun-yi, a Presbyterian minister in attendance, even adds: "In Christian doctrine, God created all living things for man to use. But our denomination has already reexamined this question, and feel it is an unreasonable, uncivilized doctrine."

"What's more, you can't describe the livelihood of farmers and fishermen in the same breath with mass 'entertainment,'" argues Master Shih Chao Hui, director of the Association of Respect for Life of the Republic of China. Catching chickens is, to be sure, part of rural life, but is it appropriate to treat them like "playthings" outside of the essentials of life? Must human happiness be achieved through the suffering of these animals?

It's just like Spanish bullfighting, American rodeos, or lions that jump through hoops or dogs that roll on top of balls in the circus--though we may get a good laugh out of them, there have always been little voices of doubt. "It certainly cannot be that something shouldn't be criticized just because it is a long-established custom. Take the circus. With so many forms of entertainment today, why should people bother to try to figure out from the human point of view how to get animals to do things they otherwise shouldn't be doing?" contends Chen Ming-fa, secretary-general of the Wild Bird Association of the Republic of China. Master Shih Chao Hui has harsh criticism, saying that this kind of "playful torture" of an animal that is, like ourselves, part of the collectivity of living things, "is really too demeaning and completely lacking in class, and we can just as easily do without this kind of culture!"

Beginning of a dialogue:

The conservationist ideal of "use with restraint" is a universal value for all mankind, but "conservationism is a kind of education, not a policy. Perhaps it will take some time to promote a change in attitudes," says Tang Hsiao-yu, chief of conservation at the Council of Agriculture, taking the middle ground. Customs have been passed along for thousands of years, but were themselves created from nothing. Concern for animals can also be built up from scratch.

After the public forum, the Luerhmen Tienhoukung Temple cancelled the eel snatching, but went ahead as usual with the fish fry counting and oyster opening that had created misunderstandings with the Association of Respect for Life. The contest of catching ducks from a bamboo raft went along swimmingly after some changes in the rules of the game:

"Will contestants please take note: The ducks must be picked up in your arms, and you cannot grab them by the neck or feet, and no further pursuit is allowed once they run into the protected area...."

During the events, warnings about animal abuse were bandied about in a lighthearted manner by everybody. Although some of the local residents remained perturbed by the severe accusations levelled at their hometown temple, anyway it was a novel experience--making the headlines by catching a chicken!

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Most kids today have only eaten chicken, but have never seen one strutting about. It's great excitement to chase these birds, but are they having a good time as well? (photo by Pu Hua-chih)