The fever of hunting wild chickens for drinking

(Baonghean.vn) - 'Son ke' is the medicinal name of wild chicken meat. Currently, drinking wild chicken and raising wild chicken as pets is a 'trend' for many people, especially the rich and powerful..

The "killers"

Wild chicken trap. The trap is made from bicycle brake cable connected to a parachute cord to make a noose. Photo: Tien Dung.

Over 10 km of forest road, we found Ha's house, a famous chicken hunter in Tay Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district (Nghe An). Ha's house is located at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by trees of raw materials such as cajuput, acacia, eucalyptus. According to hunters, Ha currently owns the "best" rooster in the area because its crowing is so good that it can attract both roosters and hens from far away. Ha covered his mouth with his hand and crowed a few times, suddenly the colorful wild chicken on the tree branch in front of the yard swooped down and landed on his shoulder. Ha lovingly stroked the chicken's back and said: "This "divine chicken" prey helps me earn millions. Many people offered to buy it for 5 million VND, but I didn't sell it."

After a drinking party with the chicken Ha had just trapped, Ha brought his tools and jumped on the Mink, roaring loudly, taking us over 7 km of winding forest road to Bo Bo range, the junction between Yen Thanh, Tan Ky, and Quynh Luu to experience hunting wild chickens.

The equipment Ha brought was quite simple: the “divine chicken” bait and 10 traps. The place we arrived at was a valley with lots of bushes, near the people’s fields. Ha continued to lead me deep into the forest to choose an empty space next to the cajuput hill to set the traps.

A jungle fowl is about to fall into a trap when it flies out to fight a decoy chicken. Photo by Tien Dung.

Ha tied these 10 traps to the base of a tree, screwed nails into the ground, and covered them with dry leaves. Then he placed the decoy chicken in the middle. Ha said: Wild chickens are very smart, so you have to walk lightly and avoid noise, if there is any noise, they will not come. After setting the traps, we hid in a bush and waited, holding our breath.

As expected of a divine rooster, when Ha set the trap, the decoy chicken was silent, but when we finished hiding, Ha covered her mouth with her hand and called out to signal, then the divine rooster listened to its owner and stretched its neck to crow loudly, echoing throughout the mountains and forests.

The decoy chicken crowed a few times and then stood still to rest. Every 5 minutes or so it crowed provocatively. About 20 minutes later, we heard the jungle fowl replying from the deep forest. It was thrilling to see the beautiful looking jungle fowl crowing and jumping from tree to tree and landing on the ground.

It raised its neck feathers, looking at the decoy chicken - the intruder in its territory as if it wanted to attack, but it still kept its distance to probe. At that moment, the decoy chicken also stretched its neck and crowed provocatively. Unable to bear it, the wild chicken rushed in furiously. Suddenly, "phút", it was suspended, struggling and squawking loudly. Hà winked and smiled, then ran out to remove the wild chicken and put it in the cage.

Looking at the “spoils of war”, Ha exclaimed: You are lucky, this one is a five-color chicken, it can be sold for more than 500 thousand VND. Ha added. There are many five-color chickens, but five-color chickens with white ears are extremely rare. If you can trap them, each one will cost more than 1 million VND.

Wildfowl hunters harvest their trophies. Photo by Tien Dung.

After more than 5 hours of ambush, Ha finally trapped 2 roosters. With the current price of wild chicken meat being 300,000 VND/kg. Ornamental roosters are 500,000 - 1,000,000 VND/bird, the 2 roosters he had just trapped would be worth nearly 1 million VND if sold. It was truly a lucky day for a chicken hunter.

To learn more about wild chicken hunting, we went up to the mountainous districts: Tan Ky, Do Luong, Anh Son... In these localities, wild chicken trapping is more common than in the forest areas in the lowlands. Not only trapping, many people also bring flintlock guns and sports guns to hunt wild chicken.

Phuong, a hunter in Yen Thanh said: We, going into the forest for a day and a night like that, can shoot about a few dozen birds. These spoils of war can be sold to specialty restaurants for over 200,000 VND/bird (dead chicken).

According to our research, nowadays, hunting wild chickens is not only a job for farmers to make a living, but there are also some "rich people" who ride cars, carry sports guns to hunt wild chickens for fun. These rich people also bring Western wine, electric grills and many other things for a hunting trip of a few days...

Are jungle fowls extinct?

Currently, the hunting of wild chickens is increasing like a fever throughout the forests of Nghe An. According to an officer of the Forest Protection Department of Tuong Duong district, the problem of hunting wild chickens not only puts this "forest bird" species at risk of extinction, causing ecological imbalance, but it also brings many unsafe risks to the forests.

It is known that, in the face of wild chicken hunting, the Forest Management Board has also coordinated with Nghe An Forestry Department to take many preventive measures.

However, in reality, the hunting of wild chickens is still increasing day by day, many markets and restaurants in Nghe An still openly sell wild chickens...

Faced with the rarity and skyrocketing prices, some people have quickly bought trapped wild chickens and successfully domesticated them, such as Mr. Nguyen Vinh in Hop Thanh commune, Yen Thanh. Currently, he has bred dozens of wild chickens to sell for breeding and sells male chickens as pets, earning tens of millions of dong each year. This is considered a new direction for some farmers to propagate rare wild chicken breeds that are at risk of extinction and are a way to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty and get rich.

Tien Dung