Jake Hawkins

At first thought, the word “peacock” probably sparks ideas of beautiful, blue and green-feathered birds representative of grace and elegance. However, for current residents of the Village of Pinecrest and South Florida as a whole, this beauty comes at a large cost in the form of damaged homes and vehicles, poop and squawking louder than a screaming baby.  

Over the past decade, peacock populations within the community have increased by tenfold, with ostentations, or groups of peacocks, growing well into the dozens. This issue has concerned residents and elected officials of the Village of Pinecrest for years. 

“[Pinecrest residents] love living here, but one of the more prevalent complaints was the peacocks, and it was primarily, I would say, on the eastern part of Pinecrest,” Village of Pinecrest Councilwoman Shannon del Prado said. “I started registering the complaints that they would pack up people’s cars; a lot of people have screened porches, they will fall through the windows; they would peck at the metal roofs. They squawk a lot… it’s just not pleasant.”

After resorting to sanctuaries, zoos and forbidding residents to leave food outside, a discussion with MPSH alumni and Director of Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens Ron Magill prompted del Prado to launch the Peacock Mitigation Program, aiming to treat the peafowl with a trap-castrate-release plan. 

“Vasectomy just seemed like the least invasive and the most humane way to grapple with the problem. It’s not an immediate fix, and a lot of people pointed out to me, ‘Yeah, but you’re not immediately fixing the problem,’ It’s not an immediate fix. But it’s something; it’s like spaying cats,” del Prado said.  

Performing vasectomies involves the process of a professional trapper responding to residents’ complaints, catching the peacocks and transporting them to Pinecrest Gardens — the local botanical and cultural center — and later, following the procedures, the peacocks are to recover in a pen until they are healthy enough to be released to Pinecrest again. 

The village has appointed veterinarian Dr. Don Harris, an expert in avian and exotic animals, to lead the initiative, with the project launching on Oct. 1.

“Pinecrest is hiring professional trappers who gather the birds and bring them to the facility that I’m using for this so that I can do the surgery at my own convenience, so that’s step one,” Avian and Exotic Animal Medical Center Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Harris said. “I will select a couple of days a month where all I do is peacock vasectomies. On those days, the birds will already be there, and I will go in and I’ll collect the birds one by one, I’ll anesthetize them and I’ll perform the procedure. When I’m done, they go back into a different holding pen and then the trappers come retrieve the birds and get them back to the area.”