Posted on 06/17/2014 1:56:54 PM PDT by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Someone is taking out peacocks in the city of Rolling Hills Estates – and residents are divided over whether that’s a good thing.
KNX 1070′s Ron Kilgore reports the city has asked the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to investigate the killings of at least 50 peacocks since June 2012.
Technically known as peafowl, the colorful birds, which are incapable of long flights and can grow up to 10 pounds in weight, can be heard issuing their distinct mating call throughout several neighborhoods in the South Bay city.
Some of the peafowl deaths have been determined to be accidental — largely involving the birds being struck by passing vehicles — but a number of them were found to be intentionally killed, according to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles (SPCLA).
While Rolling Hills Estates has a Wild Bird Protection ordinance that prohibits anyone from shooting, trapping, taking or injuring any wild bird within city limits, officials say that hasn’t stopped an as-yet unidentified individual from killing peafowl with a pellet gun and crossbow or deliberately running them down in a vehicle.
Humane officers with SPCLA are working with the Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control’s Major Case Unit in the investigation.
City Manager Doug Prichard said there have been property owner attempts to trap and relocate the birds, but so far they have been largely unsuccessful.
“The neighboring birds just sort of fill in behind them, so for those who dislike peafowl, it’s pretty frustrating,” said Prichard.
A peafowl trap and removal program has been implemented for all areas of the city, except within the boundaries of the Dapplegray Lanes and Strawberry Lane homeowners associations, according to officials.
But resident Dale Allen, who lives in the Buckskin neighborhood, thinks the perpetrator or perpetrators may have moved to the area not knowing the birds were already longtime residents and protected by law.
“They don’t realize the peacock situation, the noise they make,” Allen said. “They do make some messes on your lawn and backyard area…and then they get upset about it, and I think that’s where it’s coming from.”
Exactly. But it takes Californians... They just passed a law that all eggs must come from free range chickens, even those commercially processed from out-of-state. So guess the price of cheap eggs in California is going to go way up!
In most common sense areas of this world, feral animals that overpopulate and become a nuisance are disposed of on sight. Maybe they should consider doing so with Liberal Californians and their nanny state government officials!
I had one, very loud was not too sad when coyote got it.
I kept peafowl for about 10 years. It was an interesting, pleasurable, and educational experience. I decided not to replenish the flock when the last one died. At the time I had no close neighbors, and the closest had approved my endeavor.
They are a lot of work in Wisconsin because they need shelter and a heated barn in the winter. I was never able to hatch their eggs, but I used a lot of their eggs in baking. You couldn’t tell the diffence in taste from a chicken egg, but they made hise rise cakes and breads because they are so much bigger — about 2 1/2 the size of a large egg from the grocery store.
They can discern the diffrence between the sound of your car and a stranger’s car and really set up a fuss when a stranger comes on the property. Their cry sounds like “rape” to the uninitiated.
I kept peafowl for about 10 years. It was an interesting, pleasurable, and educational experience. I decided not to replenish the flock when the last one died. At the time I had no close neighbors, and the closest had approved my endeavor.
They are a lot of work in Wisconsin because they need shelter and a heated barn in the winter. I was never able to hatch their eggs, but I used a lot of their eggs in baking. You couldn’t tell the diffence in taste from a chicken egg, but they made hise rise cakes and breads because they are so much bigger — about 2 1/2 the size of a large egg from the grocery store.
They can discern the diffrence between the sound of your car and a stranger’s car and really set up a fuss when a stranger comes on the property. Their cry sounds like “rape” to the uninitiated.
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