Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
Parks Canada is defending the decision to euthanize a peacock that had been running loose in Jasper National Park for nearly a week.
Dave Argument, resource conservation manager for the park, emphasized that his staff worked hard to protect local wildlife and the parks’ ecological integrity.
“It’s always our first priority when it comes to managing these special places, and occasionally the maintenance of ecological integrity requires the removal of non-native species,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate that my staff ended up having to resolve the situation this way, but it’s entirely preventable and we really appreciate the collaboration and the assistance of our visitors and residents in trying to protect these places and keeping non-native species out of national parks.”
The peacock, also known as a domestic peafowl, was first spotted by residents and Parks Canada staff in the Cabin Creek area along the outskirts of the townsite on July 2.
Officials are unaware where the peacock came from, but Argument theorized that it was an intentional or unintentional release from a motorist passing through Jasper.
Parks Canada’s human-wildlife coexistence team spent the next six days trying to get close enough to capture the peacock.
“Obviously, it’s a non-native species and has no place in the national park in Canada, being a bird that originates in Asia,” Argument said.
Staff attempted to lure the bird with bait so it could be caught with a net, a neck snare or a leg-hold trap.
“It proved to be very wary; all the efforts that were put in failed to get this bird in hand,” Argument said.
“So, weighing the prioritization of this non-native bird with other wildlife issues that my team constantly has to deal with, I made the decision to destroy the bird if the opportunity to do so safely and humanely presented itself.”
On July 7, the peacock was killed with a shotgun, and its body is currently in a wildlife freezer awaiting incineration.
Parks Canada has stated that the risk of introducing avian disease and parasites to other natural wildlife in the park was too great to allow the bird to remain on the landscape.
“We don’t know what it might have brought into the park,” Argument said.
The peacock also doesn’t contribute to Parks Canada’s ecological integrity mandate, and the bird may eat small native wildlife such as rodents.
“To have an introduced species impact the ecological integrity in that way is not acceptable,” Argument said.
“So, where it’s possible, Parks Canada will routinely take steps to remove non-native, introduced or invasive species to an area.”
Even if the peacock had avoided predation, Argument noted that the bird would not have survived long-term in Jasper.
“The life of a prey animal does not always come to a very pleasant end, so this was a very quick and humane way of dispatching the bird.”
The introduction of non-native species is prohibited under the National Parks of Canada Domestic Animals Regulations.
Unusual animal sightings can be reported to Parks Canada dispatch at 780-852-6155.
