A gruesome discovery in a North Grove garbage bin highlights deep divide over the spread of these exotic birds.
More than a month after a dead peafowl was found stuffed into a Coconut Grove trash bin, several residents continue to push for a police investigation into what they describe as a case of animal cruelty.
“They have enough for a case,” said Catherine Moghari, who has been amassing information on the incident. “I am of the belief that just because you dislike something does not give you right to kill or torture it. It’s just wrong, and it boils my blood.”
Moghari delivered the carcass of the peafowl to Miami-Dade Animal Services department, where a necropsy is being performed. Results are pending.
In the meantime, police say they don’t have enough to open an investigation. “We did an information report but we didn’t have enough for an actual crime,” said Miami Police Commander Dan Kerr.
In the aftermath of the discovery of the dead bird on July 22 in the North Grove, the Nextdoor neighborhood app exploded with angry chatter about abuse of peafowl, the ubiquitous, exotic birds that have long contributed colorful ambiance to Coconut Grove’s subtropical character.
“Bad (or sick) People!” wrote one local resident. “Sad, very sad. Hope these thugs are found,” said another. The word “massacred” showed up in one post, and other contributors suggested that peafowl were being all but exterminated in the North Grove.
City commissioner Damian Pardo posted a statement on Instagram. “Like many residents, we were sickened by the report of a peacock injured, tortured and taken out of Coconut Grove,” Pardo said. “We understand peacocks can be controversial among residents. However, cruel, sociopathic behavior must be identified and stopped.”
Nanette O’Donnell, a retired attorney who discovered the dead bird in the trash bin at her Onaway Drive home, said reports suggesting multiple peafowl deaths seem untrue. “I don’t think there’s a peacock slaughter going on, but [killing a peafowl] is a crime, it’s cruel, and I want it investigated. This is not the type of behavior that is normal.”
Among several photos posted or collected by Moghari are those showing the dead peafowl taken from O’Donnell’s trash bin, feathers and blood stains in the street, and what Moghari called “a razor-edged blow dart” found in a nearby yard.
On the day before the dead bird was discovered, Cris Cuesta, a 22-year Grove resident, said that she saw a young man outside her house “trying to force one of the peacocks into the trunk of his car.” Barefoot, Cuesta said, she ran outside and began “yelling, asking what he was doing. I couldn’t comprehend seeing that poor peacock weakly struggling not to be shoved into the car trunk.”
At about the same time, neighbor Jon Edwards, returning to his home on nearby Hilola Street, said he saw two men approach a peacock and try to pick it up. That bird got away, he says.
Edwards snapped a photo that shows one of the men and a dark-colored vehicle. “It was just super weird,” says Edwards of the incident. He posted the picture on his neighborhood’s WhatsApp group chat.
Although peafowl are exotics, native to India, they are widespread throughout South Florida and beloved by many. The male peacock is known for its stunning display of iridescent blue and green plumage, and the omnivorous birds are welcomed by some residents for their diet of insects and small reptiles.
But peafowl can also be a nuisance, disliked by others for their piercing calls and their befouling of sidewalks, lawns and rooftops with excrement.
The avians are protected by county and state law, and local governments have struggled to manage spreading populations of peacocks and peahens. In 2022 the Miami-Dade County Commission voted to allow municipal governments to submit peafowl mitigation plans. Pinecrest came up with an expensive scheme to capture males and perform a vasectomy.
Coral Gables commissioners voted to allow residents to hire licensed trappers to remove the birds from their property. The city’s resolution also authorized the city to budget $5,000 a year to move peafowls from public lands.
The hitch in the removal plan, however, is that there are few, if any, wildlife sanctuaries that will take the birds.
Moghari, who runs a television production service, says she will continue to press police to look into the peafowl’s death. “As an animal lover, this hurts,” she says. “The callousness and absolute cruelty of the act – everything about it makes me sick.”
