LA county warns residents to stop feeding feral peacocks
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Official in Los Angeles are reminding residents not to feed peacocks, with a penalty of $1,000 fine, or six months imprisonment, for doing so.
The LA County Board of Supervisors voted on 8 June to bring-in the restrictions for feeding peafowl, referring to males and females, that have been accused of burdening neighbourhoods.
Although pretty, the peafowl have allegedly plagued residents with screams in the night, and caused other forms of havoc.
“These efforts are intended to balance the needs of the local community with the peafowl population which has grown considerably over the years,” said supervisor Kathryn Barger, who sponsored the ban, to NPR.
She had argued ahead of the vote on 8 June: “People should not be feeding these peacocks, pure and simple.”
“Some of the people are coming from a good place,” said Ms Barger ahead of the vote. “But it’s not good for that population. And it is adding to the numbers that we’re seeing.”
There are thought to be hundreds of peafowl in Los Angeles after the population exploded in a year of lockdown.
But Cesar Perea, an animal crimes investigator for LA, warned to NPR that the ban was too “broad” to see a reduction in the numbers of peafowl.
“They’ve overpopulated in some areas, to where they became a nuisance to some that didn’t agree with them being there,” said Mr Perea. “[However] a law that vague is going to be very difficult to enforce and very difficult to prosecute”.
In the nearby city of Arcadia, where a ban on feeding feral peafowl was introduced forty years ago, there have been almost no charges for feeding the creatures, The Washington Post reported.
It is hoped that the creatures can be rehoused in sanctuaries – rather than being run over, incidents of which have been reported.
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