Peacocks On the Chopping Block — Manuela Hoelterhoff

The humans in Pinecrest, Florida have devised a novel plan to control the peacock population in town: vasectomies. The big birds – the males can grow over 8 feet long and splay their fantails nearly as much – have stalked into town from Coconut Grove, where large new houses are replacing the trees they once called home.

Pinecrest people have a love-hate relationship with peafowl. This species (Pavo cristatus) are majestic and lovely, sporting brilliant blue feathers on the neck and breast and an iridescent pallet of color on their long trains. But they also peck the paint off of cars, poop incontinently in driveways, and make a racket with their ear-piercing squawks. The community doesn’t want to commit mass avicide, so the plan is to snip-snip as many males as they can wrangle.

“Peacocks are bona fide polygamists,” Don J. Harris, the veterinarian hired by Pinecrest to perform the procedure, tells the New York Times. “We’re going to catch one peacock and probably stop seven females from reproducing. It’s going to have an exponential benefit.”

The vasectomy plan isn’t cheap – it will cost about $7500 per month to implement it, a steep tab for a community of 18,000 people. The office of the town commissioner whose district includes Pinecrest will kick in another $15,000 for veterinary equipment.

The plan, if it works, will help control the peafowl population, but it would also allow male birds to continue acting like cocks-of-the-walks, showing off their dazzling fantail feathers and to impress their harems. The only thing missing from their lives will be fertilized eggs.