How to solve peacock problem? Send them to Iowa
The solution to Miami’s polarizing peacock problem could be a man known as Mr. Peacock, who has generously offered to adopt the unwanted birds at his fouracre farm in Iowa corn country.
Dennis Fett and his wife, Debra Joan Buck, a.k.a. Mrs. Peacock, keep up to 250 peafowl on their property, so the squawking, pooping, landscape-devouring, carscratching habits of the birds that drive Miami residents crazy don’t bother them.
In fact, Fett and Buck run the Peacock Information Center, write books such as “The Wacky World of Peafowl,” compose songs and produce videos about them — including one in which Mrs. Peacock screeches in harmony with their flock.
They understand how peacocks are ruffling feathers, again, with the discovery in Coconut Grove — ground zero for the peafowl wars — of several peahens mortally wounded by BB gun pellets. They have consulted on conflicts in New York, Hawaii, California, Tampa and at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.
Not only is peafowl murder against the law in Miami-Dade County, it isn’t going to eradicate the birds. Nor is stealing eggs, also illegal.
“I know it’s a hot, emotional issue between peacock lovers and peacock haters,” said Fett, a retired clarinet player and music teacher. “But if you’re mad and want to kill them, they’ll sense that, hide and move. They’re resilient. They’re obstinate. If you study them, you’ll find they’re like people. One reason humans don’t like them is because they reflect human behavior.”
Fett is willing to conduct educational seminars in Miami. He recommends learning how to control the population and coexist with the beautiful but very loud birds. He’s also willing to show people how to safely catch, box and ship — by Priority Express, with a nutrition gel pack — peafowl and peachicks to his place in Minden, Iowa, where they will no longer be treated as poop-producing pariahs.
He’s confident he can find loving homes for them.
“I give practical advice so people can get past the anger,” he said.
The only things more confounding than peafowl are the laws regulating them. To animal advocates, the iridescent birds are a treasured representative of what makes Miami exotic. To those who loathe them, the invasive species is a nuisance representative of what makes Miami annoying.
While some residents believe it is their right to get rid of peafowl that damage private property by eating plants, defecating on walkways, tearing screens and pecking at roofs, a county law protects peafowl. In Miami, section 6-3 of the city’s code declares the city a bird sanctuary and Section 6-4 makes it “unlawful for any person to shoot, trap or in any manner kill or destroy birds within the city.”
So while it may be disgusting to walk out your front door in a sleep-deprived state only to have poop squirt on your head from the peafowl roosting in your trees, there’s not much you can do except squawk back — at which point your pitying neighbors will know you’ve been reduced to your tormentors’ birdbrain level.