Peacock Problem? City Council To Decide On Trapping Program

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA — Car damage, poop, noise, destroyed gardens and traffic stops: They might look beautiful, and while many people enjoy them, some neighbors have had serious peafowl problems in Rancho Palos Verdes.

As the peafowl population has grown in Rancho Palos Verdes and throughout the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the city has had to take steps to monitor the number of peacocks and peahens.

Spring and summer are the mating seasons for peafowl. The City Council Tuesday night will review the Peafowl Census Report, an annual count of peacocks and peahens in RPV neighborhoods. The City Council will also consider whether to continue to pause the City’s humane trapping program in 2021 until a new census is conducted in 2022.

The hybrid in-person and virtual meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday in McTaggart Hall at Fred Hesse Jr. Community Park and via Zoom with a very limited number of in-person attendees. COVID-19 safety protocols are in place. Virtual participation is highly encouraged. The meeting will be live-streamed on the City website and televised on RPVtv Cox 33/Frontier FiOS 38.

A staff report for this topic is available on the city's website. People can submit comments before the meeting by emailing them to cc@rpvca.gov.

In 2015, the city implemented a periodic humane peafowl trapping and relocation program in response to complaints from residents about the growing peafowl population and associated impacts (noise, property damage, etc.).

The total number of reported peafowl, which includes both males and females, was at 181 in 2021.

"It is not the City’s intent to eradicate the peafowl population, but to manage the population at levels identified in 2000 and to educate the public on how to coexist with the birds," according to a statement from the city. "This is all in an effort to strike a balance between differing opinions in the City.Every year, the City Council receives a report on the past year’s trapping program (if trapping was conducted), as well as a census report for the current year’s peafowl population, to determine whether or not to resume trapping."

Trapped peafowl are relocated off the Palos Verdes Peninsula to homes that have been screened by the trapping vendor and reviewed by the City to ensure the individuals adopting the peafowl have some avian experience and have adequate space for peafowl to roam freely.

"Under no circumstances will the trapped peafowl be euthanized or treated inhumanely," the city said.

Learn more about the city's Peafowl Management Plan on the website.

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