male 1: Oh, wow!

male 2: There you go.

male 3: There's a peacock in our neighborhood who's a very good friend of ours.

Her name is Junie.

She likes to play with us in the yard and follow us around when we're doing yard work.

Here's Junie, and she was raised around humans, so she's real friendly and lets you pet her and her head and her ears.

Hey Junie, if you spend a lot of time around humans, peacock can be very friendly.

They'll actually eat right out of your hand, so they really become more like friends than pets.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Dennis Cosso: I've lived here for 40 years, and I'm a big peacock fan and also a lawyer, but don't tell anybody that.

I don't have any ulterior motives.

I don't wanna raise peacocks.

I don't wanna have peacock tattoos.

I just like peacocks.

This is the San Gabriel Valley, and mid 1800s a guy named Elias Lucky Baldwin, a very astute businessman, developed this area and he brought in, I think like 20 or 30 peacocks or something like that from India, I think, and then they just multiplied and went nuts and there's scores of them in our neighborhood now.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Melody Wall: Arcadia, the city has definitely embraced the peacock.

It is on the city seal and down at the county park, there's a monument out in front with a large statue of a peacock.

Simone Gonzales: The peacocks are the main part of this neighborhood, and there's nothing more peaceful than just sitting in the yard with a peacock next to you.

Sriram: It's a good alarm clock.

Subha: It is a good alarm.

So at least we know that yes, it's 5:30.

Back home, peacock is considered to be one of our--the vahanas, the vehicle of a god, a murugan, and my parents, when they were here, anytime they see a peacock, they get that sense of blessing.

Before even they wanna see me and the kids, they wanna see peacocks.

male 4: I like the peacocks.

Sarah Rosenberg: It's a very unique animal.

I mean they really feel like dinosaurs to me in a lot of ways, which makes them so mysterious.

Like no one that we know has ever met a dinosaur.

So it's kind of amazing.

Did I ever show you guys pictures of Bravery?

How do I get to my story on Instagram?

Hold on, I don't know what I'm doing.

Do you guys do Instagram?

So Bravery had her own Instagram.

She was absolutely amazing.

Macho, our bearded dragon was her best friend, and so they were together all the time.

She had a bullet lodged in her clavicle, so someone shot her when she was tiny.

We found her when she was like this big and she couldn't keep up with her mom, and she had one leg like this her whole life.

I took her to all these specialists but they couldn't do anything so we just kept her 'cause she was so vulnerable, but I wanted her to have a regular peacock life so I put her out every day.

She lived with us for over three years and we took her to everything, baseball games and outings and to the park and to drop the kids off at school and she was just always with us.

She was super, super special.

She slept right here.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's true, and I don't let anybody put anything here 'cause it's Brave's bed.

male 5: All right, Bravery, watch this.

So you see how all these cards are different, right?

Bravery, right?

Sarah: It was like a leap to have a wild animal in your house.

I mean, that was kind of a big deal.

Simone: Sarah is the protector of the peacocks here.

Sarah: This is Jacci.

He had a broken leg.

Simone: She has looked after the wounded birds for about 12 years now.

Sarah: Look, he's like, "Where am I?"

Sarah: Yeah, I guess I became, like, the crazy, crazy peacock lady.

It's really become a part of my identity.

I mean, I feel like people are like, oh, that's that crazy peacock lady in the minivan trying to put the babies back with the moms and fixing the guy that got hit by the car or whatever, but we as a family stepped into their environment, and now we're trying to support that.

Jonathan Gonzalez: In South Pasadena in the past year, we have relocated somewhere between 160 and 200 birds.

My name is Jonathan Gonzalez.

I catch and relocate peafowl in the greater Los Angeles area.

Arcadia is pretty unique.

They had a petition years ago that many people--I believe 500 people, signed to not touch the peacocks.

There's no trapping to be allowed, private or public.

Melody: The issue about peacocks, I--I'm not sure when it, you know, first developed.

My awareness started in 1992 when I just read a little article that the city council had started a process for citywide trapping.

I knew my only avenue was to find out, you know, what the truth was.

Did the Arcadia people really love them or were they really a nuisance that needed to be, you know, something needed to be done about it?

The peacock issue, like many issues, it's the people who complain that get heard.

The media covers the complaints, the drama.

When people get worked up, that sells newspapers, that sells airtime.

It's the nature of people and the media.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Shannon Howard: Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of peacocks.

That might be the unpopular opinion around here.

In my most frustrated moments, I have the fantasy of like, that's it.

I'm gonna be the one who leads the charge to bring down the peacocks.

Shannon: Get out of here, shoo!

Shannon: They're very, very noisy but it does sound like people screaming, they absolutely wake us up in the night.

male 6: They are loud, they're pecking on lawns.

They eat flowers, they eat vegetables.

They're scratching cars, especially dark and black color cars.

Shannon: They see the reflection in the car and they will start pecking at it.

Somebody's very nice BMW got really pecked up and scratched up and just happened to my brother-in-law's car tonight too.

They get on the rooftops, they're very destructive to the roofs, and they poop everywhere, which is toxic to dogs.

male 6: When you wanna walk into your front door, you have to walk on your tippy toes because you have all this poop.

So I decided that something has to be done.

I created a petition, and within three weeks I collected 250 signatures.

The city council voted to relocate the peafowl from this neighborhood.

Shannon: After I'd heard about South Pasadena's relocation program, I called LA County and I basically was told we can't do anything, they're protected in Arcadia, so.

Jonathan: There's a lot of problems that come with peacocks, peafowl, but the breeding season is what really drives people crazy.

Sarah: Generally in the neighborhood it's not very loud, but during mating season it can get really, really crazy.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Simone: Mating season starts around March.

I don't know what indicates them to start dancing, but that's what I call it when the men start spreading their feathers out for the women.

male 7: I like when they dance.

Sarah: There's words that happen between them in that community that I don't know what they're saying, but they're all, you know, vying for the same hot girl.

Simone: The male's main concern is to hold his ground and his position and be able to be doing the mating ritual if any female comes along.

It makes leaving the home very difficult during mating season.

There is a lot going on from the front and the back and then they turn around, it takes a lot of energy, but most of the women, they don't seem too interested.

Dennis: Like my wife.

I have trouble getting my feathers out at night, you know.

Simone: As far as I know, I think only about 5% of the males actually get to have the intercourse, and the rest I guess keep trying.

male 3: Baby peafowl are called peachicks, and they're hatched from eggs.

Their mothers, when they're very young, teach them everything.

They teach them how to find food, where to go, how to be safe up in trees, and all the things that they need to know when they're really, really tiny.

Sarah: Most of the babies start coming in June, and once the babies are born, we're kind of like on high alert.

It's crazy town, like, we walk around the neighborhood all the time.

We're very protective over our peacock babies.

Simone: The little guys, the peachicks are really vulnerable when they are first born.

At night there are oftentimes a couple stragglers who fall out of the tree.

They do not wanna be picked up, so you have to chase them around.

Sarah: I've spent so many hours on my hands and knees in these bushes, we're like, on our bellies, like, crawling.

It's this race.

Can we find the baby that's crying and grab it--which is really hard, faster than the hawk that's waiting so they can get the baby to feed the baby to their babies?

Melody: Because when the baby gets separated from its mother, it just cries and cries and cries.

It breaks your heart, it drives you crazy, you go, I should just leave it alone, let nature take its course, but you have this little thing crying and it--it'll cry for days.

Shannon: What I find really distressing are the folks who live here, our neighbors who have formed real strong attachments to the peacocks and kind of made them into their pets and who feed them large amounts of food and we've ended up with too many for a neighborhood block like this.

Jonathan: People really relate to them, they do see them as pets, they see them as children, and I try to explain if I'm asked, you know, they are wild feral birds, they don't need your help.

There are so many neighborhoods in LA County that have a peafowl problem.

Usually the result of someone feeding and someone not feeding, and they live next to each other.

Dennis: It does seem like there are more peacocks now than there were 30, 40 years ago.

Sarah: There's 74 peacocks here, 89 or whatever at last count, I think we counted 77 on our street.

male 6: They're multiplying.

There's no way you can get rid of them.

They're all over Arcadia.

Jonathan: In the past few years, the spots in LA County that have not had a trapping program have had huge population booms.

I've received a couple emails or calls from residents in Arcadia who want to start trapping.

Dennis: To take them and move them, I'm not comfortable with it.

It just seems to me to upset the balance of what's been happening around here for well over 100 years.

Jonathan: The peacocks were here first.

We hear that all the time and because they were brought here 100 years ago, but they were brought to property that was very open, and people put up houses.

The peacocks can't control that, and now you'll have these population booms in these tiny pockets surrounded by highways and busy streets.

Simone: I don't trust the relocation program.

I think they need to be audited by somebody who cares because I don't know if--what's actually going on.

Jonathan: I've heard rumors that they get eaten.

I've heard people think that we euthanize them, and those are not true.

With our birds, what we're trying to do is catch them, humanely house, and relocate to farms and ranches, beautiful open properties that these birds get to explore and hang out on.

Sarah: No, no, I don't think we should relocate the birds.

I think we should relocate the people.

That's it, problem solved.

Jonathan: I try to point out to people, if you care so strongly about the birds, don't you hope they get taken care of in a humane, safe way, instead of possibly being hit by cars or physically attacked in your neighborhood?

Megan Alexander: Azul the peacock was found dead from a gunshot wound to his chest.

Now the sheriff's department is investigating whether his death was the result of a murder for hire plot after a mysterious Craigslist ad called for the bird to be eliminated.

At least 50 peacocks have been injured, shot with guns or arrows, poisoned, or run over.

Now investigators have a strong lead.

A witness says a man in a silver Mercedes shot and killed a bird with a BB gun.

Sarah: When the peacocks get killed, I get really emotional and upset about it.

I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer, but I really feel like humans are going in the wrong direction.

There are many people that are more concerned with the appearance of their driveway and their lawn than they are of the beauty and the wisdom and the magic that the natural world holds.

female 1: Do you think the peacocks will be here for another 100 years in Arcadia?

Dennis: I think that the real question is whether or not the people that live in this area put up with them or not?

♪♪♪ Melody: The peafowl are not a problem, they're a gift.

They're really a gift.

I went and got petitions, signatures, and the truth is, the majority--by far the majority of the people want the peacocks to be here.

Subha: I think we all get so caught up in our day to day lives that we kind of forget to appreciate the nature and how we are just a small part of the nature.

So, living with them, sharing the space with them kind of makes us think about it every so often.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Dennis: I feel fortunate that I can live a life exposed to animals and I think if people slowed down and just kind of watch the animal world, they would see something really beautiful.

It's harmonious, it's terrific.

That's how I feel about animals, and I never thought I'd ever talk like this, but I like them, a lot.

♪♪♪ male 3: There aren't many places that have peacocks, so peacocks are very special.

Remember, if we're good neighbors to them, they will always be good neighbors to us.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪