A few days ago I was cycling along Oxford St by the Cook Street Village when I saw the strangest thing: two police officers putting a peacock in a ‘paddy wagon’.
(Side note: peacocks are the flashy males, peahens are females, and known collectively as peafowl, but I’ll use the term peacock for the purpose of this piece, though technically incorrect.)
I stopped to ask what’s up, and apparently this fine feathered fellow had been jumping onto the hoods of parked cars and doing a bit of damage with their claws, and they were going to return him to Beacon Hill Park a few blocks away.
I asked if they happened to know who to call for matters relating to peacocks, and they confirmed the confounding experience I had several months ago when I tried to help out what appeared to be a lost peacock (up on Broughton St at Vancouver!)
I started by calling Wild ARC, assuming peacocks were ‘wildlife’. They said peacocks weren’t wildlife, so they couldn’t respond. Next I tried the CRD Animal Control, assuming that peacocks must be ‘domestic’, and they informed me that peacocks aren’t considered to be domestic. I tried the SPCA of course, and they said the same thing.
So peacocks appear to be in limbo in Victoria, living a paradoxical existence, where they are neither domestic nor wildlife – apparently the only two ‘categories’ for animals in BC.
Which is a problem, because if there is an injured or sick peacock, who are we supposed to call? The police officer I spoke with also mentioned that one of the owners of a damaged vehicle had apparently kicked the peacock.
Animal cruelty shouldn’t be tolerated, and that brings up another question – how would this case be handled in a court of law? If someone kicked a dog or a deer, it’s pretty obvious which direction one could pursue, but with our peacock paradox, what would our options be? Or are they an invasive species, or feral?
Native to India, the first peacock was brought to Victoria in 1891, and have found the climate tolerable, and there’s apparently a population of around 40. They do end up in the news sometimes, in this instance one gets the impression the CRD is supposed to handle them, but it’s definitely not consistent.
I’ll update this piece if I learn more, better informed comments are welcome below, and feel free to email the Victoria Mayor and Council (mayorandcouncil@victoria.ca) and let them know we need to ‘pick a lane’ for peacocks so we know who to call if there’s an issue.
