D.C. mayor backs off proposed chicken ban

Bowing to public uproar and deeply skeptical council members, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has scrapped proposals for a far-reaching set of animal regulations that would have decidedly cramped the style of cats, dogs and chickens in the nation’s capital. Bowser included the rules in legislation attached to her proposal for next year’s budget. But the mayor’s office had not reckoned with the public reaction to measures that included a ban on backyard chickens, a requirement that all cats be licensed and a provision that seemed to outlaw leaving dog feces in a private yard for more than 24 hours. After a Health Committee meeting last week at which council members jeered the regulations — which they said had nothing to do with the budget — and chicken and cat owners found common cause in defending their pets’ liberties, the mayor relented.