Animal authorities seem to be taking the case of a problematic neighborhood peacock seriously after other victims came forward with their own traumatic experiences.
The Animal & Veterinary Service told Coconuts last night that the pet peacock that left a 3-year-old needing stitches for the cuts on her face has finally been caged at home in Serangoon Garden.
And the girl’s mother, Kris Chan, said she learned the bird also attacked a woman in August 2020.
Both cases are under investigation, the animal service said. It warned poultry pet owners, including the peacock’s keepers, to cage their animals, which are not allowed to roam free.
“At the same time, we have visited the owners’ home today and observed that the peacock was caged in an enclosure, and have directed the owners that the bird is not allowed to roam outside its premises,” the service’s group director Jessica Kwok wrote.
Chan yesterday said that “several” people came forward to her after she ranted Tuesday about the big bird charging and mauling her daughter as they were heading home Sunday from Haus Park.
She said a woman attacked by the peacock suffered a laceration just beside her eye. The woman filed a police report and reached out to AVS but “nothing much came out of it at all.”
The peacock’s owners allegedly refused to take any responsibility and insisted it was not their fault after Chan confronted them Tuesday.
“So the owner MUST have known that his peacock is aggressive and yet he didn’t implement any safety measures at all. That is truly unbelievable and unimaginable to us,” Chan wrote, noting the unrestrained animal’s repeated attacks on children and adults.
Chan called on other victims to contact her and appealed to the neighborhood for surveillance footage of the Sunday incident at around 6pm. She said neither the owners nor AVS had gotten back to them for several days as of yesterday afternoon.
Penalties for not complying with rules to prevent the spread of avian disease in non-commercial poultry amount to a fine of up to S$10,000 and a year in jail. Such animals include chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, quails, partridges, pheasants, domestic pigeons, guinea fowl, swans and peacocks.
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