Council Finds Peafowl Trapping Plan Won’t Fly : Birds: About 100 people flock to City Hall to voice their opposition to trapping the animals. The City Council decides to hire an expert to come up with a solution.

Faced with overwhelming public opposition to the trapping of peafowl, the City Council decided to hire a bird expert to find a more acceptable way to control the city’s rising population of the exotic bird.

About 100 people crowded into the City Hall chambers for a public hearing Tuesday on whether the city should begin trapping peafowl, whose numbers are estimated to have swollen to between 500 and 700 recently. The majority of the speakers--who were often applauded by almost all the audience--chided officials and told them to leave the birds alone.

In his first day on the job, City Manager Don Duckworth recommended that staff find an ornithologist, preferably one from the Los Angeles Zoo, who would come up with a management program for the peafowl by the next council meeting on Sept. 22.

Duckworth suggested the proposal after officials bickered among themselves on the proper method of thinning out the peafowl population. Only Councilman Bob Harbicht favored trapping. Other suggestions included exploring birth control, implementing an egg bounty program and forming an ad hoc committee to study the problem.

Although the council agreed on the recommendation without a formal vote, Mayor George Fasching and Harbicht expressed disappointment with the decision.

“What will an expert tell you? How to trap them and where to put them?” Fasching shot back. “I already know that.”

“I think it’s a cop-out to making a decision, and just a waste of time,” Harbicht said. “I think these people deserve an answer (tonight).”

During the public hearing, about eight people spoke in favor of trapping and at least 13 against it.

Those who favored trapping primarily live north of the 210 Freeway, where the peafowl have recently ventured to munch on lush flower gardens. They complained that the birds let out high-pitched screams during mating season, leave messy droppings and destroy the roofs of homes by clawing on them while nesting. Some said the birds are potentially violent.

“My daughter has been chased by them,” Sheldon Bull said. “She’s afraid of them. I can’t go outside without a flashlight. I’m afraid I might step in something.”

In June, Bull presented the council with 143 signatures of neighbors who said the birds are a nuisance. He predicted Tuesday that property values will fall if the birds are not trapped and relocated.

However, residents who live south of the freeway were against residential trapping because, they contend, the peafowl population has dwindled over the years.

They pointed out that the birds have been in the city more than 100 years, having originally flocked to the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum after being imported from India. They said they have learned to live with the birds and suggested that others do the same.

“They never eat my flowers because I plant flowers that they don’t like,” Vince Foley said. “These are (wildfowl) that can’t be controlled. Don’t mess with Mother Nature because she will win. . . .”