By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

A bold observation: On Kaua'i, the chicken is overtaking the gecko (which, in recent years, had overtaken the whale) in souvenir shop/"art" gallery/tchotchke kiosk appearances.

Tourists are complaining about the chicken noise, residents are complaining that tourists are complaining, but beneath all the crowing about crowing is the growing realization that Kaua'i's noisy, bossy chickens are highly marketable.

Not the actual chickens, of course. Nobody really wants to buy them.

But their image, like the Nike swoosh or the Paul Frank monkey, has become one of the hottest designs among touristware.

As the donkey is to Kona and the wallaby is to Kalihi Valley, the wild chicken is becoming the Kaua'i mascot.

There are chicken mailboxes and chicken napkin holders for sale. Chicken T-shirts and chicken keychains. Chicken plush toys, chicken earrings and chicken original art pieces in oil, watercolor or brass.

There's a chicken image for every traveler and for every budget, from economy class to presidential suite.

In the gift shops that carry treasures for folks to take home with them from their stay on the Garden Island, all the chicken stuff is in the front of the shelves. The aloha-print fabric geckos are relegated to the bottom shelves.

The whale stuff is gathering dust.

The turtle is an also-ran.

Visitors to Kaua'i may be irked by the piercing early morning crows of the legions of roosters roaming the island. But those who make their living off the souvenir dollar sure seem to think these same visitors are fascinated, even charmed, by the naughty, rowdy birds.

The geckos enjoyed the same type of public relations spin in recent years. Tourists were told that the messy lizards are "good luck" to have in your hotel room and that their weird clicking noise was "chirping" or "singing."

Yeah, right.

"They keep out the mosquitoes!"

And so does an intact window screen.

Kaua'i chickens are even harder to deal with than the geckos. If you have a gecko in your hotel room, you have options, including gently escorting the chirping good-luck reptile and his detachable tail out the door and into the vast gecko buffet area of a porch light.

But if a rooster is screaming his head off outside your window, there's not much you can do. They run fast, some of them are pretty good at flying, and earplugs don't drown out the noise.

The collective Kaua'i consciousness may have seized upon the only viable way to deal with the recent chicken population explosion:

If you can't beat 'em, market them to the tourists.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.