Rancho Palos Verdes Plan To Allow Residents To Trap, Relocate Peafowl

RANCHO PALOS VERDES (CBSLA.com) — The city of Rancho Palos Verdes is moving forward with a plan to curb what officials are calling a peafowl population explosion.

Under a plan approved by city officials Tuesday, locals will be allowed to trap and relocate up to 150 birds a year in an effort to reduce the current peafowl population back to pre-2000 levels.

The $34,000 Peafowl Management Plan (PMP) will also reportedly explore potential uses for a pellet form of birth control for pigeons and other birds known as OvoControl.

According to a census conducted last year, the number of peafowl in several Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhoods more than doubled from 125 to 285 over a four-month period in 2014, the Daily Breeze reported.

Researchers also found the overall peafowl population spiked by nearly 70 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to The Breeze.

In addition to the proposed measures, the Rancho Palos Verdes municipal code also prohibits anyone from feeding peafowl, coyotes, or "any non-domesticated predator."

Two peafowl were found fatally shot in February by whom residents say is a man that has been killing peacocks in neighborhoods throughout the Palos Verdes Peninsula.