The peacock.
Is there any more recognizable symbol of Myanmar?
First used by kings and then student dissidents, the peacock was has also been adopted by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which features a fighting version on the party flag.
While the peacock is informally considered Myanmar’s national bird, Dr. Thein Aung, chairman of the Myanmar Bird and Natural Resource Protection Association, tells 7Day he tried to make it official through a proposal to the Department of Forestry last year.
But this was before the NLD won landslide elections in November. The political winds have shifted, and the peacock is going to ride them to into… okay can’t think of how to finish that metaphor. You get the point.
“We will propose it again in the time of the new government,” Thein Aung was quoted as saying. “We will make a proposal about the peacock together with proposals for bird conservation. It will happen quite soon in the time of the new government.”
Peacocks are also threatened, and the adoption of the bird as a national symbol could theoretically support conservation efforts.
Myanmar already has a national flower, the Pa Dauk, Thein Aung added.
Why not a bird?
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