Garden Clubs of GA response

FLIP THE BIRDS

Please see response below from GCGA

State Legislative/Governmental Affairs

Chairman, Mary Lovings

I've now received four emails from those receiving legislative messages about Flip the Birds and will respond. An Augusta owner of a chain of restaurants specializing in serving chicken, Chris Cunningham, has a website to encourage changing Georgia's official state bird from the brown thrasher to the Cornish chicken, the widely reared domestic poultry for food species in Georgia or to, as he includes, "Ruffle some feathers." GCG initiated the official brown thrasher designation in 1970.

At http://sos.georgia.gov/archives/state_symbols/state_symbols.html the entire list is available. Note that Georgia's officially designated flora and fauna tend to be native species. Not on the list yet is the brookie, the Southern Appalachian brook trout, for which GCG advocated enthusiastically knowing that it was declining in great part because of degraded streams and continued legislative moves to reduce beneficial stream buffers that would continue to reduce water quality. An associate in another organization sent Flip the Birds a month or so ago, thinking I'd find the website and the situation describing us as radical funny, which of course I did for several reasons, especially because of the site's other inaccuracies and errors.In economic times like these, I mostly consider Flip the Birds comic relief, akin to that dramatic device in Shakespeare's tragedies. People can stand only certain amounts of intense and tragic drama.

As far as I have experienced, GCG is not a radical organization, far from it.The website suggests contacting one's Congressman - those fine folks represent us in Washington in the U.S. Congress. Our Georgia General Assembly House Representatives and State Senators are the ones who make designations of official birds and fish and rocks and songs and on and on.Audubon did not describe the brown thrasher as migratory. In some states it can be, but it's considered a native in Georgia which is of course why GCG worked had it designated the State's official bird.The Cornish chicken is considered a domestic fowl and isn't a native species.The BROWN THRASHER section of the Flip website is the one that speaks of the radical Garden Club of Georgia.You can go to http://www.flipthebirds.com/ and enjoy the fun.