Tag: miami peacocks

 
As beautiful as a model on South Beach and as annoying as your ex, peacocks have certainly divided the population of Coconut Grove. They are beautiful animals, dressed with gorgeous shimmery colors and flashy tails, but they’re not going to LIV. They’re going to your backyard and they come to dominate.

Once a charming addition to the area, peacocks have become a problem and Coconut Grove is not the only one. They have also migrated to Pinecrest, Coral Gables, El Portal and Miami Shores. The problem is that they overproduce and are not as charming as they initially appear. Some believe that they should be categorized as an invasive species and some think that they should remain protected.

Remaining protected means that it is illegal for any person to hunt them, capture them, bother them or re-home them, even if they bring their drama to your house. Here is what their drama boils down to:

They are loud.

If you have never heard a peacock screech (especially during mating season), you have been blessed. They are loud. The sound is either a mating call or an alarm call. In either case, it’s a loud “Ah-AAAAAH” that can register 100+ on the shriek-o-meter and can be heard as far as five miles away. That is all the way out of Coconut Grove. Thank goodness most homes have hurricane impact windows at this point, so that blocks a lot of the sound.

They are messy.

While they are beautiful, they are birds. Large birds. They build nests, will absolutely tear up your flower beds, steal your avocados and mangos, and any other fruit that you might have. Let’s not even talk about the droppings. They are large birds, you can put the rest together…

They are mean.

Peacocks will fight anything or anyone. Even themselves. They are known to fight their own reflection in people’s cars, leaving scrape and peck marks everywhere. Your body mechanic will laugh about it, so make sure to keep your gate closed… except wait…  they can fly over the gate. So keep your car in the garage when you’re not using it and by all means, don’t chase a peacock or instigate if they show you the tail feathers. Take the photo and move on, they are not here to play.

They are huge birds.

If a peacock flies in front of your car and you accidentally hit it, your car will get totaled. Don’t ask me how I know so much, just know that they do fly in front of your car sometimes and hitting one makes a lot of damage. They are animals after all, so are unpredictable.

With all this being said, they are still beautiful creatures and we are not into killing. So what can be done?

Half of the community feels that they should be officially labeled an invasive species. This would put them in the same realm as iguanas and pythons. It is fully legal to trap, hunt, remove, do whatever to these animals as long as it is done in a humane fashion. Officially, peacocks do qualify as an invasive species at this point.

The other half of the community would like to see them preserved. A 2001 city ordinance declared them as safe from harm. This is sort of a fairy tale solution as (again) they are animals. They breed and this is breeding season.

“Mating season is when we get the most complaints. They get very aggressive,” said the sponsor of the peacock removal bill Raquel Regalado, whose district includes neighborhoods in Coral Gables and Miami where peacocks roam freely. “They lay their eggs, they build their nests, they peck the cars.”

On the opposite side Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, who represents Palmetto Bay stated, “In my district, we learn to live with these peacocks. They almost become a part of the community. I know our residents lose it when anyone harms any of these peacocks.”

Palmetto Bay has designated itself a bird sanctuary.

What started as a flock of 10 or 20 peacocks being saved in 2001 has become hundreds of beautiful, loud, messy birds. While the preservation campaign has less support than the removal campaign, we remain in the middle. The only amicable resolution is to find a peacock sanctuary somewhere.

The county has agreed to crack down on the population, but the peacock sanctuary campaign has also experienced challenges as there are none in Florida. We however, have found one in Texas. By no means can they handle the entire peafowl population in South Florida, they are available to take on as many as they can.

If you have too many peacocks on your street, don’t hesitate to contact us for details on the Texas sanctuary. They can be re-homed to a similar climate, except rather than busy streets and luxury high rises, they can have the rural country home that they deserve. And we can also control the population of the beautiful yet annoying birds that attack our cars, mess up our yards and wake us up in the night.