| Legislation on 'trespassing' chickens passes
By Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald Reporter
register-herald.com
CHARLESTON â Are chickens crossing the road to scratch up a neighbor's property or to gulp down some corn scattered by shady hunters to lure wildlife into their gunsights?
Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, suspected the latter was behind passage Thursday of HB2541, adding chicken to the list of animals for which owners can be held liable if they venture onto a neighbor's turf.
"We have a chicken bill to charge chickens with trespassing because people are putting out corn for deer and the turkeys," Barnes said.
"Chickens are going to be attracted to that. This is protecting people that are illegally baiting deer and turkey and wildlife any way."
Barnes criticized the Legislature for running such legislation while refusing to act on such matters as the one advanced by the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization.
For two years, the group has sought expanded rights for landowners in dealing with mineral rights holders before crews come to drill for oil and gas.
"We have major issues," Barnes said. "We have surface owners that don't have rights on their own property where gas companies, literally, legally trespass on their land, tearing it up, doing things," Barnes said.
| 
