Like any other shared space, public transit is gross. Even when the rules are clearly understood, people are going to do whatever they can get away with, whether that means clipping their nails, delivering racist tirades or ravenously eating potato chips off the floor. Plucking birds, however, is not gross—or at least shouldn't be if you've ever enjoyed a Spicy Chicken Sandwich that didn't stab your mouth with a hundred razor-sharp quills.But despite being a non-racist, odor-neutral activity, people lost their minds earlier this month when a Canadian woman plucked a bird inside a plastic bag on the Montreal Metro, retching and panicking and accusing her of eating the bird raw. That last part soon became the focus of international press coverage, earning write-ups from the Metro, the Daily Mirror and UPI, who ran the headline "Woman plucks and devours raw bird on Montreal Metro in viral video."
However, Christine David, who claims to be the woman in the video, has a different story. Talking to Vice, she said "No, I didn't eat it actually. They were just exaggerating." According to David, who comes from an Inuit community near the arctic circle, the bird was a rare treat from back home, a ptarmigan , she merely started defeathering out of excitement.
David had earlier defended her actions on Facebook, saying, "I was so happy that I didn't care where I was at the moment," "I was not even eating it raw" and "I will always be an Inuk no matter where I am."
Police are reportedly investigating David's suspiciously ethnic behavior, weird stuff having never before happened on a subway car.
