Residents of a South Florida community are flocking together to curb the proliferation of peacocks in their town by hiring a veterinarian to perform vasectomies on the colorful birds.
The Miami-Dade County Commission approved a mitigation plan proposed by the inhabitants of the Village of Pinecrest to humanely curb the abundance of peacocks in their community. The plan, which was approved in July, authorized the hiring of veterinarian Dan Harris to perform vasectomies on the male birds, as one male could father up to 10 nests, NBC Miami reported. (RELATED: Indigenous Tribes Kill More Than 1,000 Bison At Yellowstone)
“We’re going to catch one peacock and probably stop seven females from reproducing,” Harris told The New York Times, calling the birds “bona fide polygamists.”
Peacocks are breeding and running amok in Pinecrest, Florida. They have pecked the paint off cars, defecated on driveways and released piercing squawks before dawn.
So the village will test a novel solution to rein them in: peacock vasectomies. https://t.co/tbOOiGvzwn pic.twitter.com/jy0UqLsZeR
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 9, 2023
Though beautiful to look at, peacocks “take up a lot of space and get very aggressive and protective of their nest,” District 7 Commissioner Raquel Regalado told NBC Miami. Peacocks are also known to be destructive, attacking cars when they see their reflection and leaving excrement all over sidewalks and driveways, leading to “slip and fall” incidents among residents, the outlet stated.
In 2001, Miami-Dade County made killing or capturing a peacock illegal — although that was when their population was much smaller, The New York Times reported. “The population has reached critical mass,” Harris explained to NBC Miami. “So now, we’re seeing many more birds hit by cars, many more attacked by dogs. They exceed the carrying capacity of the environment, and when that happens, they start getting hurt, sick and die off,” he continued.
There is no guarantee Pincrests’s efforts will be successful as capturing peacocks is not easy. While endoscopic avian vasectomies are much easier than full castration, it still isn’t without risks, The New York Times reported. “To be honest, the expense that goes into trap-and-release programs is really hard to justify,” Dr. Jim Wellehan, a zoological medicine professor at the University of Florida told the outlet. But, he noted, people were often not keen on euthanizing the birds.