The peafowl of the Palos Verdes peninsula have been around since the 1920s, but in recent years, they've become so plentiful that they've become an enormous nuisance to many residents. It's become such a problem that the Rancho Palos Verdes city council this week decided the best solution is to adopt an "aggressive" trapping program to capture and relocate about 150 peafowl elsewhere, says the Daily Breeze. The "peafowl management plan" also allows for trapping and moving the same number next year if needed; the council is also looking into OvoControl, "a pellet form of birth control for birds." How bad is this baby boom?
There has been an incredible increase in RPV's peafowl in just the last year. RPV does a regular census of its birds and found that the peacock and peahen population in four neighborhoods had doubled in about five months of 2014; between June and October of that year, peafowl numbers went from 125 to 285. Despite the fact that in 2009, RPV trapped and moved 71 birds and that someone murdered dozens of them, the overall population in six RPV 'hoods has increased 69 percent between 2011 and 2014. Get a TV, guys.
While these peafowl are happily reproducing, many locals say the "population explosion" has been hell for them. (Peacocks and peahens are a hot-button issue with residents, who, it seems, either love or hate the birds.) The overabundant birds are destroying their roofs, "defecating on their driveways," and screaming at all hours of the night. But RPV peafowl supporters are unmoved, saying that people who chose to live in the neighborhood and then complain about the peacocks that have been here since the Twenties are like people who move next to an airport and kvetch about noise.
Of the neighboring communities, RPV's plan is the most aggressive. Rolling Hills Estates has its own "peafowl protection zone" but also allows residents to request traps for the birds. (Not many do.) Palos Verdes Estates does its own counts and traps and relocates birds as necessary to maintain the population at certain numbers. RPV's will begin trapping in early September.
· Rancho Palos Verdes approves 'aggressive' plan to trap up to 150 peafowl a year [DB]
· Someone is Serial Murdering Peacocks in Rolling Hills Estates [Curbed LA]