Bold peacock roams near Volgograd: experts assess survival odds and explain capture
The escaped peacock has been sighted in Kotelnikovo, with owners offering a reward for its return.
A bold peacock has been roaming the streets of Kotelnikovo in Volgograd Oblast for the fifth consecutive day. According to the owners, the exotic bird escaped from its companions in the aviary last Thursday and has not returned home since. The man previously asked for help on social media, but, he says, only neighbors responded, who saw the peacock a couple of days ago near its home:
«They lived in the aviary, they needed to be moved to the shed for the winter,» a relative of the owner says. «And so, when they were catching them, they forgot to close the gate, and one jumped out over the fence. They tried to catch him, but he flew away; peacocks fly well. The day before yesterday, neighbors saw him nearby, tried to approach him, to feed him, but he flew away immediately. Peacocks, unlike chickens, are very wild birds and are afraid of people.»
Peacocks escape very often, according to Alina Yerina, the owner of the «Bird Island» shelter: not only from homes but even from zoos. Previously, the owner of the zoo center sheltered an exotic bird that escaped from its owner and said that there are always many people willing to «shelter» the expensive pet:
«People let peacocks roam freely on their property, saying »oh, it«s tame, it won»t run away«,» Alina Yerina says. «Any bird, no matter how »tame« it is, can suddenly want to fly away, and peacocks fly quite well, so their aviaries must have a roof. Finding them is 50/50. You need to post in public groups, ask people for a financial reward. Because a peacock is an expensive bird, and you need to understand that if someone finds it, they might just take it and resell it.»
Moreover, according to renowned biologist Nikolai Onistratenko, a peacock can easily die in the wild: either from stray dogs and cats, or from cold and hunger:
«He can find food for himself either in the garbage or in someone»s yard, together with chickens,« the biologist reasons. »However, hunger and cold can kill such an exotic. So it«s necessary to try to return him to familiar conditions as soon as possible. Like any chicken, a peacock can get used to certain words or conditional signs related to feeding. Then he can be lured with familiar words, food. Maybe he»ll join some chicken coop, a turkey flock. But in general, the bird is quite shy. It would be good if he goes to his owner.«
By the way, we previously reported on another exotic inhabitant of Volgograd Oblast «on free range» — a real camel: it was encountered in the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain, however, as Nikolai Onistratenko said then, in those areas, villagers often keep the symbol of the deserts as livestock and let them graze freely. And even earlier, in Gorodishche, an extremely bold pheasant was caught on video.
