Backyard hen advocates, Ali Savino, Bob Payne, Ed Bruske, Pat Foreman, Dong Kim and Caryn Ernst, met with the Mayor’s Deputy Director for Policy and Legislative Affairs, Jamal Anderson, and his staff Joseph Enten and Ashley Marshall on Wednesday, May 19. The Mayor’s Office was interested in the issue and optimistic about our prospects [...]
Posted in Access
By Ed Bruske
Contributing Editor
Washington Post garden columnist Adrian Higgins today lends his voice to the growing movement behind backyard chickens in the nation’s capitol with a front-page spread in the paper’s Home section.
Higgins recounts the story of Caryn Ernst and how D.C. police and animal control agents swooped down on her family’s Capitol Hill home in June when they discovered that Ernst and her daughters were raising some chickens in their back yard as part of an elementary school science project. After the chickens were taken away, Ernst started digging into D.C. law and discovered that it is nearly impossible to raise backyard chickens in the District of Columbia. Animal control regulations require that chickens be kept at least 50 feet from the nearest residence.
Ernst took her concerns to local Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who, with Ernst’s assistance, drafted a new law that would ease restrictions on keeping chickens. That bill is now in the hands of Councilmember David Catania (R-At Large), pending a hearing before the Council’s Committee on Health, which Catania chairs.
