Flap over peacocks ends with proposal — not birds — killed
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
Ten months after it began, the great peacock controversy of West O'ahu has ended quietly with the Makaha Valley Towers board of directors voting to drop its plan to capture and kill three-quarters of the estimated five dozen to six dozen wild peacocks that inhabit the grounds near the high-rise.
Mark Ono, district supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services in Hawai'i, said yesterday the association asked for the return of the $4,000 it paid the service to conduct the first feral peacock removal project of its kind in the state.
The project was hatched last spring after several Towers residents complained about the loud calls the free-roaming male peacocks made during mating season. Residents also made a stink about bird droppings. The association contacted the USDA's wildlife agency in Hawai'i, which said it could do the eradication.
However, feathers flew when other residents squawked after hearing about the plan. The board then put the project on hold while it studied the situation. Meanwhile, bird lovers from around the Islands and as far away as Texas offered to give the peacocks sanctuary.
Those offers went nowhere because questions arose about how to catch the peacocks without harming them. There were also concerns about how the birds might affect wildlife in areas where they were to be transplanted.
In the end, the board decided last week to kill the idea instead of the peacocks.
"I'm absolutely thrilled," said Makaha Valley Towers resident Janet Powell, who cried when she heard about the peacock removal plan in June. "I'm so glad that they're not going to kill them, shift them, move them or anything else. Because they were here long before we were. And they are so beautiful."
Ted Pond, association president, said he is glad the episode concerning the peacocks is over. "That's the end of it," he said. "I just take out my hearing aids, and I can't hear them anyway."
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
