Idaho Falls Chukars

8

I'm guessing a fair number of readers have no idea what a chukar is, or even how the word is pronounced. I'll start with the pronunciation. You can put stress on the first syllable, in which case it sounds like chucker, or you can put stress on the second syllable, in which case the chu sounds like the cha- in cha-ching! and the kar sounds like the word car. The team, from what I can find, goes with the chucker pronunciation. I'm not sure if this is intended to be a sly reference to chucking the baseball. It's the sort of word play I can see a team engaging in, but I can't find any evidence of this being the intent. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

As for what it is, it's a kind of bird. Specifically, it is a kind of partridge native to Asia. Its native range includes Turkey, most of the Middle East that isn't on the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucuses, most of the Stans, northern India, Tibet, and a strip of China running roughly from Tibet to Beijing. The bird has also been introduced all over the damn place: Chile and Argentina, New Zealand, Hawaii, an island off the coast of South Africa, and (as you've probably guessed) the continental U.S. and Canada. As you can imagine, it's a robust little bastard. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the chukar as "Least Concern", which is environmentalist-ese for "We couldn't care less about these little shits. We've got bigger fish to fry. Or we would if we were in the habit of frying fish, which we're not because we're environmentalists. Okay, maybe salmon. There's a shit-ton of salmon out there, too. And salmon's tasty. Um, I'm sorry, we seem to have gotten off the subject. Yeah, chukars. Metric shit-tons of the little buggers. Totally not worried about them."

Incidentally, if you're wondering why chukars were introduced to the U.S. and Canada, it's so people could shoot at them. Seriously. That's how little the IUCN cares about them. People brought these birds to America specifically to be shot at and the IUCN didn't say a word. Well, okay, maybe the IUCN's silence was actually because they didn't exist yet when the chukar was brought to North America. But they apparently haven't said anything since, either. So, hunters, you can shoot these things with a clear conscience. Unless, of course, you're the sort of person that can't harm any living creature without feeling guilty. And I'm cool with that, but I point out that I specifically said, "So, hunters [emphasis added], you can shoot these things with a clear conscience," and if you can't harm any living creature without feeling guilty then you're probably not a hunter and I wasn't talking to you. If you're a hunter who can't harm any living creature without feeling guilty, then in all honesty I think you need to consider finding a new hobby.

All in all I do like the name and the logo. The name, because it's unique. The logo, because...well, I'm not sure. There's no denying they have some pretty bad clichés in it. The name is your basic script name, complete with a line coming from the s to underline the team's name. And the mountains in the background are not only unnecessary, but pointless as well. The Chukars play in the Pioneer League. The Pioneer League has teams in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. Pretty much all of the teams are in the mountains. Nevertheless, I do like the logo. May be because of the color scheme? I'm really not sure, but something about it just works.

Final Score: 8 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Scenery, 11 pts.
Bonuses: Name, -10 pts.