'They want to gang up and get rid of the peacocks'
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GOSHEN, Ore. - If you feed them, they will come.
Emily Bowman has been serving up wild game food to the peacocks in her neighborhood for years.
"This is very expensive stuff," she said.
The peacock whisperer worries her new neighbors aren't as interested in the birds.
"They want to gang up and get rid of the peacocks," Bowman said. "The peacocks was here before the school was."
"They" are the Willamette Leadership Academy. The school moved in next door this year - except when they are under the peacocks, instead.
"One bounce and a flop of a wing and they're up there," Col. Roger McClelland said, pointing at the roof where as many as 15 peacocks have been perched at once.
There are over 30 peacocks roaming the halls.
"They drive us insane as far as having to clean up after them everyday," McClelland said.
The peacocks are pretty messy, and feathers aren't the only things the birds are dropping. If you're not careful where you're walking, you might step in a pile of it.
And even if you dodge the droppings with your feet, you can't avoid the foul smell of peacock presents left on sidewalks and handrails around campus.
"And they mess in the grass where our students sometimes have to do pushups," McClelland said.
The stuff gets tracked inside the school.
But is it a health risk?
"There's no poop in the kitchen," said Zach Manning, a Lane County Health Inspector. "That's really all our area of expertise, so hopefully that answered the question."
With no one claiming these pesky peacocks as their own, the neighborhood is meeting to discuss their feathered fate.
"I love them," Bowman said. "I don't chase them away. I love em."
I wonder if we could add them to the menu at one of the local soup kitchens....seems like a turkey-like dinner for a group of needy folks to me. Â
Heavens to Betsy... don't shoot them, we let criminals go in Lame County, but surely they would throw away the key for hurting the silly bird.Â
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i love reading all the silly statements people make about why "this or that" should or shouldn't be done. Â Its comical.Â
So this Emily idiot is the one! They've been trying for years to get rid of these pests. Quit feeding them, and they will look for (and find) food elsewhere. I have a friend who lives across the street from the house where they were abandoned. Try living across the street from a herd of cows living on a small lot in town, then tell us there is no problem. It's the same type of problem.
Thats nothing, there is a guy in Washington DC that has been pooping on all of us for the last four years. ;)
30 non native bids roaming the wetlands of Goshen pooping all over the place??  Sounds like a job for Fish and Wildlife's invasive species removal department to me!  If it was a clam or snail, they would be all over the place!
Don't we all=)