Oahu Audubon Center Apologizes for Peacock slaughter

[MyUncle]

The original story came out on the weekend.

This is very sad but true. What were they thinking?



Posted on: Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Apology follows peacock culling
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Aug/03/ln/ln33a.html
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

The director of the Waimea Valley Audubon Center yesterday apologized for the killing of park peacocks by archers last week, a move to control the population of birds that had become a nuisance to people and plants in the park.

Diana King said the park will look for better ways to manage the peacock population. "It was a tragic mistake and it won't be repeated," King told The Advertiser. King said she is calling and e-mailing people who complained to the Audubon Society.




Park's peacocks quelled with bows and arrows

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Jul/31/l...

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Three archers killed about 10 peacocks last week at Waimea Valley Audubon Center after the birds became a nuisance by pecking at children, destroying native plants and leaving feces in the dining area.

Outraged animal-rights activists and others now want to know why more humane methods of control weren't used.

Diana King, center director for the Waimea Valley Audubon Center, confirmed that conservation manager Lance La Pierre and two volunteers shot the birds one day last week in response to problems with a peafowl population that has grown to "several dozen."

King said the decision was made to "trim" the population, not to eliminate the showy, but non-native, birds.

[glitch]

1. they couldn't have just adopted them out? what the hell - this from the

AUDOBON SOCIETY? I am sure there would've been people in HI happy to adopt them.
What is happening to our world?

[Xithras]

2. Adopt them out? I hope not

Hawaii has enough problems with non-native animals screwing up the environment. How many people would be willing to adopt them knowing that they'd have to be kept within a caged or securely fenced yard all their lives? And how fair would that be to the birds...to be isolated in small fenced yards away from their kind?

I don't have a problem with them putting the birds down, but they certainly should have found a better way to do it. Archers? Are we stuck in the 14th century or something? What's wrong with dart guns and poison tranqs? How about cages and gas? There are many ways they could have taken these birds down without making them suffer like that. Heck, taking a shotgun and SHOOTING them would have been more humane than allowing them to slowly bleed to death with a metal spike shoved through their bodies.

Someone should be fired and prosecuted for this.

[MyUncle]

3. Arrows are an unusual way to treat birds that eat out of your hand.

[shadu]

4. Yes, they are gentle birds

Very easy to care for and
beautiful beyond belief.
I cannot imagine that someone
with a huge enclosed area would not have taken these
wonderful peacocks.