The matter of once-wild peacocks terrorizing a neighborhood was the subject of an official public hearing in Twentynine Palms this week.
On Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., a number of residents the Adobe Circle area were invited to participate in the public hearing to determine the fate of the peacocks.
Their orgin, as relayed to Z107.7 by Twentynine Palms Animal Control Supervisor Rick Boyd, was as the property of a motel in the area known as El Adobe in the 1930s. Boyd explained that the motel closed, then the caretaker of the property passed away in the 1990s, leaving the descendents of the original peacocks to fend for themselves.
Over the last few decades, the peacocks have slowly migrated toward Two-Mile Road. There are accusations, which were discussed at the hearing, that a woman had been feeding the birds, bringing them closer and closer to homes and wreaking havoc.
Boyd said that the birds, of which there are about six, were perching on cars and roofs, leaving feces, and getting aggressive with residents. After receiving numerous complaints, letters were sent to neighborhood residents to determine what should be done, and the whole of the city was invited to the hearing.
Boyd said,
“At the public hearing, we had a lot of our citizens present, which is great. We listened to both sides of the issue just to see where people were, if there were problems, and to see what the residents thought. We had the hearing and came up with a couple solutions and everybody agreed to them.
“One solution would be to keep the peacocks in the area but build an aviary, or to relocate them to a farm for them to live on.”
Boyd explained that those two options were being considered this week, and that a final determination as to the fate of the peacocks would be made early next week. When asked if perhaps the resident could simply stop feeding the birds, Boyd said,
“The thing with peacocks is that when you start feeding them, and the same goes for any other wildlife, peacocks, coyotes, bobcats, where you’re feeding them from that becomes they’re home base. If you’re feeding them at a home, they are going to continue to come to this home. You become mom or dad, and they’ll keep coming for food.
“Even if they were to stop feeding the peacocks right now, that would still be home for them, and now they’re going to be asking for their food. It might be a good municipal code to institute for the future, “no feeding the peacocks,” but it’s a new problem. We already have that code for feeding coyotes, meat-eaters, and pigeons.”
Stay tuned to Z1077 next week to find out the fate of the Twentynine Palms Peacocks. We’ll bring you updates as we hear them.
