Ybor City's rooster boosters win over trapper

TAMPA — Trapper Mike Martinez never met a neighborhood so proud of its wild chicken population.

Ybor City residents have rallied around their roosters. And now Martinez will let them stay.

The 29-year-old licensed trapper initially came into Ybor in response to complaints that roosters were strutting into a business and scaring off patrons.

He planned to thin out the chicken population by catching most of them and taking them to havens in Pasco and Polk counties.

But residents told him roosters have been a part of life in Ybor since its first immigrants arrived in the 19th century.

Neighbors planned a protest, and passed out fliers that read: "Save Ybor's Chickens!"

So Martinez announced Tuesday that he is changing his strategy.

Instead of moving the chickens, he'll tag each of them with a tiny, color-coded bracelet. He hopes that will help residents monitor the population, which currently stands at about 100.

He also plans to meet with members of the Ybor City Development Corp. and neighborhood association to talk about creating chicken-friendly boundaries within the neighborhood.

Martinez recently found a hen and her chicks dead, with no signs left by a predator. He interviewed some neighbors, and now believes the chickens were poisoned. That made Martinez mad, and he is now on a mission. He says nobody kills chickens on his watch.

He isn't one of those fly-by-night trappers who shoots ducks with crossbows, he says. He got into this line of work to rescue animals. And that's what he plans to do in Ybor.

On Tuesday, he pulled his sport utility vehicle up to the Sixth Avenue railroad tracks, with his kids in the back seat. He's usually off on Veterans Day, but he had some patrolling to do.

The trapper in the khaki uniform walked through parking lots and behind businesses, crouching near trash bins and under fences, looking for rat poison and antifreeze.

He didn't find any this time. But he hopes the guilty parties saw him looking.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3354.