Helping Resident Peacocks and Peahens

Peacocks and female peahens are some of nature’s most magnificent birds. Native to India and Asia, unfortunately many were brought to England, where they were then either eaten, put in cages or released, which means there are now several villages where they wake people up at night, and even attack cars and poo everywhere!

Peafowl are not native wildlife, they are classed as exotic pets, so if you see any, they are likely escapees from someone’s estate. The best solution is to try to find the landowners, so they can go back to living where they are at present, but hopefully with better secure fencing.

Brockswood Animal Sanctuary is one of the few organisations in England that takes in unwanted peacocks and peahens, and gives them a new home, in a safe wild environment. They’ve built the birds a special large aviary from recycled materials from Birmingham, so they can live as nature intended, and be away from other birds, as they are highly territorial.

Many villagers get annoyed, but others are defending them. When there are issues, volunteers try to humanely capture the peacocks, to move to safer areas. One local police force says ‘we don’t have policemen chasing peacocks around the village. There are skilled volunteers to move them’.