NEWS & VIEWS: This is an interesting minor crime, a misdemeanour in America. Two men admitted making their dinner by boiling chickens in a Yellowstone Park hot spring. Dallas Roberts was making dinner, he said, with his cousin Eric and a hot-spring chicken chef also named Eric. You wouldn’t necessarily know that it’s a crime to boil a chicken in a ‘thermal water feature’.
The cousins were sentenced to 2 days in prison, two years’ probation and a fine of $540 while Romriell was sentenced to 2 years’ probation and ordered to pay $1250 in fines and court fees. They were also been banned from the park for two years.
They were enjoying a trip to the park with canoeing and hiking to Shoshone Geyser Basin. Romriell appears to have been interested in dining in the wilderness and like the idea of cooking in a hot geyser. It appears that he was fined more than the others because he was more interested in the idea of preparing fine food in the wild. They also made milkshakes from wild raspberries and boiled hotdogs by slinging them into hot springs, reported The New York Times.
They said that they had read the park rules but they made no mention of a ban on chickens being cooked in hot springs. They used a seal roasting bag which was placed inside a sack. They placed this in a hot spring. The bag and sack prevented the bird contaminating the water. The park ranger served them with notices (not food!) to appear in court. The wording of the notice is interesting in that it said they were charged with “tossing items inside thermal features”.
