The Crimean Chicken War

I know that this story is out of my promised order but it is so important to the world that my story gets out that I just had to tell it out of turn. I took my other typists off their current projects and had them work up this story because it is had to be told.

The Crimean Chicken War is still going on but I find myself safely in exile in the north of Ukraine thanks to the overwhelming sacrifices of my family and friends and I can not thank them enough for their help in getting me out.

Tonight I sit in relative comfort surrounded by family and friends in an eighth floor hotel room on the outskirts of Kiev while my Crimean associates are being killed and cremated by the hundreds and thousands at the hands of the military arm of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and there is little that I or anyone else can do about this unfair and unjust war. Let me take you back a few short weeks to the time when news stories started showing up in the newspapers and on television news casts of an insidious virus creeping around the world. It seems that the world health organization is referring to this virus as the Avian Flu and as I am an Avian I started getting worried. Stories started appearing on the news of confirmed cases and birds started dying, not from the flu but from a scared human population. My family and I started discussions on what we would have to do if the time came that this sickness came to our part of the world and I felt secure but I knew that I had to do more.

Since I can’t fly myself I started working with the local pigeon population to get the word out because it came to me that most of my fellow birds can not read or speak human and remain in ignorance of this insidious war that we wanted no part of, did not start and are dying from by the millions. The word was spreading thanks to the very helpful pigeon population and the talkative nature of the Crimean crows. We recruited the leaders of the local migrating wild ducks to spread the word beyond our little part of the world and the word was out. Soon it came back to us that birds all over the world were discussing Avian Flu and they were preparing. Because I was able to control the flow of information and the way that it was presented, I was able to keep the hot heads under control and insure that the preparations were entirely of a non-violent nature. I was insistent in this and I would let no discussion start that included harm to others in our name. I am after all a Knight dedicated to the preservation of human life.

We searched out places to hide if war came to us and set up evacuation plans to get the young one out before harm could come to them. In Kerch we found a ready made hiding place, one that had been used for thousands of years by countless humans and horses to escape from prosecution and we started stocking it up for a long term siege. The last time this location was used 47000 people went down and 1.5 years later only 4700 came out as the partisans of Kerch hid from the Nazi occupation troops. Currently it is know as the Catacombs and descends below the ground four stories and covers many square miles of land. As you can see from the photos it has been attacked, but it still stands and is visited by thousands of people each month. We have worked out entrances that are not used by the humans and we have stocked the catacombs to hold 5 million birds for up to two years before we will have to worry about supplies of any kind and if all comes out as expected our population will increase by almost 60% while we are in the catacombs thus allowing us to break the cycle of death associated with the Catacombs.

Four weeks ago the Volunteer’s doctor came to Kerch at great expense and discomfort to give my family immunizations that was supposed to stop the Avian Flu dead in it’s track. We were cheered by this and relaxed our vigilance because we were lulled by the supposed cure. We were caught flat footed last week when the humans reported outbreaks of Avian Flu in three locations throughout Crimea and my fellow birds started dying. My family was notified a day early and we made plans to head north while I sent out the word to hide. I traveled inside a picnic basket on the train with my family and thus escape the fate of many of my fellow birds.

In our escape we went into the heart of the infected land and my family helped me remain safe and isolated so I would remain healthy. While I feel bad for the many older family members that gave up their lives and did not make it to safety, I feel very satisfied with the knowledge that I helped save millions of young birds from the all consuming fires of an unjust war. The war has been especially hard on ducks and chickens so it means a lot to me when I see that my family has presented each refugee with a baby duck to take home with them as a kind of starter kit

The war goes on and I continue to keep in touch with my fellow partisans. We will survive, we will grow and we will once again populate the world with our songs and our calls. All we ask of you is understanding. We know that killing us only makes you feel like you are accomplishing something but we would like it if you would come to the table and talk with us about this problem. We will be able to tell you that is does no good to kill us by the millions when we would like to solve the problem just As much as you would. We will look for the infected birds and take care of them for you, thus eliminating the problem and the unnecessary death.