Residents concerned over rising peafowl population in Coimbatore city

The Forest Department apparently relies entirely on the cooperation of the people in respective neighbourhoods to control the peafowl population in the city and suburbs.

The department has noticed that feeding of the birds by a section of residents has been the major cause for the spurt in population of the birds.

Increasing presence of the National Bird, a protected species under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, is pronounced in Puliakulam area, according to the residents.

“The birds come out into the residential localities in search of food from the now defunct Pankaja Mill in Puliakulam where the greenery inside has come to serve as its habitat, during mornings and evenings,” Pechimuthu, a resident of Periyar Nagar, said.

“As such, the birds that have been breeding inside the premises of the mill for the last four years ever since it was shut down during the COVID-19 lockdown do not cause any disturbance, but there are indeed apprehensions regarding its growing numbers among the residents,” he added.

“Peafowls are fast spreading out of the mill premises in search of food and water. Necessary action must be taken by the authorities for protecting the ecosystem and preventing human-animal conflict,” Harish, another resident, said.

Peafowl being the National Bird, must be protected, he added.

Pankaja Mill, one of the textile mills of the National Textile Corporation, with 31,000 spindles has not been functioning since the first lockdown in 2020. Spread over 17 acres, the mill premises is home to about half-a-dozen peafowls, says one of the workers of the mill. Since the mill is not operated, only a handful of workers go to the mill every day for basic maintenance, the workers added.

“Collective cooperation of the people is vital for addressing the issue. We have observed instances of peafowl frequenting particular households on a daily basis due to the habit of regular feeding by a section of the residents,” an official of the Forest Department said.

The department has been undertaking awareness drives and urging people to desist from feeding the birds as the only option to bring down its population naturally, he said.