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[–] 124 points 8 months ago (35 children)

Huh, apparently peacocks are endangered. So probably that's why?

I honestly thought they were quite common as livestock but I guess I was wrong.

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  • [–] 68 points 8 months ago (11 children)

    The common peacock, also called Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus), seen in the pic above, is not endangered. Least concern in fact.

    The Green peafowl (pavo muticus) is endangered, but I highly doubt the Florida man had/ate that species. Much harder to acquire—I’ve never even seen it at a zoo.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    People get tigers and lions so I don't think a peacock is much harder to acquire. Also according to Wikipedia:

    The green peafowl is in demand for private and home aviculture and threatened by the pet trade, feather collectors and hunters for meat and targeted.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Lol just admit you got it wrong, why argue? You said peacocks are endangered, and they’re not. Just say oops and move on.

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  • [–] 26 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    Here's the thing. You said "peacocks are endangered." Is Green peafowl in the same genus? Yes. No one's arguing that. As someone who is a scientist who studies peacocks, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls peacocks endangered. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing. If you're saying "peacocks" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Pavonini, which includes things from indian peafowl to mbulus to green peafowl. So your reasoning for calling a peacocks endangered is because random people "call the ornamental birds peacocks?" Let's get mandarin ducks in there, then, too. Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A green peafowl is a green peafowl and a member of the pavo genus. But that's not what you said. You said peacocks are endangered, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the pavonini tribe endangered, which means you'd call indian peacocks, congo peafowl, and other peacocks endangered, too. Which you said you don't. It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    They recognized a blind spot in their knowledge, did some learning, then reported back with what they learned. Then you yelled at them? It’s not like they were being combative.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    Did we read different comments?

    They posted a Wikipedia excerpt about a specific type of peafowl being endangered and said that people get other endangered animals so it wouldn't be hard to get an endangered peacock.

    At no point did they admit a blind spot in their knowledge. In fact they doubled down on their blind spot even though they were told the peacock in the article isn't one of the endangered ones.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    I can't find any mention of the specific species of peafowl the man had. My personal guess is that it's just a stock image of a peacock. None of the articles below mention the species, but one does have the same mugshot.

    https://apnews.com/article/peacocks-killed-florida-man-arrested-e1466f377234c6bc30f3c761c09f4607

    https://nypost.com/2025/09/30/us-news/florida-man-arrested-for-allegedly-killing-cooking-and-eating-pet-peacocks/

    https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-man-eats-pet-peacocks-dispute-neighbor-feeding-them-craig-vogt-pasco-county-sheriffs-office-tampa-bay/

    Quoting the AP article,

    The 61-year-old man from Hudson, Florida, was arrested last week on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty, according to an affidavit from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

    The man told investigators that he had killed the two peacocks because his neighbor kept feeding them. He had written the neighbor a letter telling her that he would continue to kill his pet peacocks if she kept feeding them “to prove a point,” according to the affidavit, which didn’t say how many peacocks he kept.

    The man “admitted to killing the bird by cutting the bird’s neck out of spite, then bleeding it out, and then later eating the bird after cooking it on a frying pan,” the affidavit said.

    So it doesn't seem so simple as him merely getting arrested for deciding to eat one of his peafowl.

    Killing an endangered animal and cruelty to animals are separate statutes. So I think it's safe to safe it's not an endangered peafowl.

    I don't care enough to pull the man's actual court records and see if he was also charged with Intentional killing or wounding of any species designated as endangered, threatened, or of special concern.

    If anyone wants to sleuth on this further, feel free.

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    But would a pet affect this? Isn't endangered status about wild animals?

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  • [–] 43 points 8 months ago

    If the animal is endangered you still get dinged even of they are you pets. The laws are written as such to prevent this and things like getting an endangered or threatened species as a "pet" and then killing them to taxidermy.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago

    No. It doesn't really matter if the animals are wild or in captivity.

    Under the ESA, it is unlawful to "take" any endangered or threatened animal species, which is broadly defined to include harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, or killing.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago*

    Its to discourage people from capturing wild endangered species and raising them as pets. Making something a pet is as good as killing it in the wild.

    However, I don't think they're native to florida so I'm not sure it matters.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I feel like every other park I've ever been to has had a peacock...

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    probably that’s why?

    Nope!

    He was charged with animal cruelty, probably because of the wacky letter he sent to his neighbor, and that he did it “out of spite.”

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    animal cruelty laws are a good thing, but this is bullshit, why are some animals allowed to have rights, while others allowed to be butchered and eaten?

    I'm not vegan, but there should be a consistent framework.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    why are some animals allowed to have rights, while others allowed to be butchered and eaten?

    The line is generally a combination of social, practical, and culinary. That is, if it's not a companion animal, it's not endangered, it is customarily raised as livestock and it is tasty those are all evidence it probably goes in the latter category. So chicken = food, whooping crane = not food because endangered, german shepherd = not food because companion, blue ringed octopus = not food because taste bad.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    but those are also cultural.

    horses? food in France.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    So, who's asked whether it is "tasty" or not?
    What if someone fed a really bad diet to chicken and as a result the produce was not tasty to anyone that bought it? Can the seller now get jailed for selling non-tasty chicken (or for having killed those chicken prior to selling them)? :P

    Also, I never really found chicken tasty, out of the few times I tried. Once, it was, due to the marination, but then it's the marination ingredients that are really tasty. So I guess you are better off not referring to me when deciding what is legal :P

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Dude our whole country is governed based on the feelings of right-wing men.

    Every issue, every unsolvable problem, every "why the fuck do we do THAT?!" exists because right-wing men have huge feelings about things and the only cards they can play are either "violence" or "control" (which are usually the same thing.)

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    To be fair, from what I've seen if peacock behaviors, they're dicks.

    Animals being dicks is not a good enough reason to kill and eat them. They should also be tasty.

    Is peacock tasty? I've never had any. Can we ask the guy in the news story?

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