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The legal sale of exotic animals supports an industry that generates tens of billions of dollars each year, but that sum is rivaled by the amount that changes hands in illegal transactions involving them. There’s no shortage of criminals who attempt to cash in, including two people who made off with dozens of peacocks after staging a bold heist at a hotel in California.
The “exotic animal” moniker doesn’t really have any concrete definition, although I think it would be fair to define it as the kind of creature you’d be very surprised to encounter being kept as a pet if you walked onto someone’s property and ended up greeted by its presence.
I also think it would be fair to say peacocks fall under that umbrella, as those ostentatious birds don’t really come close to topping the list of the most common household pets.
Peacocks (which is technically the term used to describe male members of the peafowl species) are native to Southeast Asia but were first exported to Mesopotamia more than 10,000 years ago.
Their eye-catching nature helped make them a desirable status symbol in other cultures around the globe, and they still manage to fetch a pretty penny compared to more common types of birds—a reality that some thieves in California were seemingly hoping to take advantage of in the wake of a bold heist they recently staged.
The Ryde Hotel in Walnut Grove, California had dozens of peacocks stolen in broad daylight
The Ryde Hotel, located around halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, has a history stretching back to 1886 and positions itself as a posh destination for weddings and other events thanks to the lush landscaping on the tranquil grounds surrounding the Art Deco building, which are usually home to a population of 40 peacocks.
According to NBC News, the hotel’s owner purchased five of the birds close to 15 years ago, and they and their offspring have lived a pretty cushy life thanks to staff members who helped domesticate them by giving them leftover scraps of prime rib and salmon to create an environment where they were more than happy to mingle with guests.
Unfortunately, that level of comfort may have also helped facilitate the crime that transpired at the hotel over the weekend, as a guest who spotted two men putting some of the peacocks into a cage in a pickup truck on Sunday sparked an audit that led to just four of the birds being accounted for.
A spokesperson for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office says the male peacocks are valued at approximately $2,000 apiece, while the female peahens (which have less elaborate tail feathers) are worth $1,000 (it’s unclear how many of each were taken). Police are still investigating the matter, and it doesn’t appear they have any suspects as of this writing.