Great chicken acceleration

Anthropocene writers sometimes mention that the bones of the broiler chicken might be a candidate for the geological marker of the new epoch. Here's why. The red junglefowl Gallus gallus, a small long-lived bird from Southeast Asia, was brought to Europe already in Roman times. But it's only the results of the competition launched by the Texaco-sponsored Chicken of Tomorrow film of 1948 that gave us the chicken we know today, the combined mass of whose c. 23 billion specimens at any given time exceeds that of all other birds on the planet combined. The new ones grow much bigger much more quickly, reaching a full size unimaginable to their forebears within 6 weeks. (They couldn't survive much longer if they tried; Gallus gallus can live happily for ten years.) Mass produced and mass consumed, their bones are mass discarded, without time to decompose - optimally fossilizeable: their bones even have a special signature from the chemically-fertilized crops they're fed. A chicken in every pot turns out to be a recipe for disaster.

(Image and details from Strata and Three Stories, 29)