Thursday, August 4, 2011

Peacock escapes central park zoo

Peacock escapes central park zoo
Peacock escapes central park zoo. A peacock flew the coop today from the Central Park Zoo and remains on the loose on the Upper East Side, authorities said.“The peacock poses no danger to anyone,” the zoo said in a statement. “To ensure a good outcome in this situation, we ask everyone not to follow or harass the bird if they see him.”
A zoo spokesman added, “We are hopeful he will either fly back to the zoo or we will retrieve him nearby."

The bird, a male, escaped around 9 a.m., a zoo worker told The Post.

The peacock drew about 100 onlookers this afternoon as it remained perched on a fifth-floor window at a building near East 65th Street and Fifth Avenue for about five hours.

Zoo workers and Parks Department officials were at the building in the hope the bird would fly to a lower floor so that it could be rescued.

Kate Spence, 29, a teacher from Vancouver, said, "We expect to see a lot of things in New York City, but not this!"

It remains unclear how the peacock was able to escape from the zoo, which is located inside Central Park near East 64th Street.

The escaped bird even spawned his own Twitter account, where the poster wrote in one tweet: "Anyone know where I can find some good flower petals? My escape fight made me ravenous!"

Peacocks are large, colorful pheasants who weight anywhere between eight to 13 pounds. Peacocks, who are able to fly, generally eat flowers and seeds.

In April, a snake escaped from the Bronx Zoo and remained missing for six days.

The slippery Egyptian cobra was finally caged nearly after pulling off a Houdini-esque breakout from her enclosure at the zoo.

It turned out that the zoo's pet detectives finally caught up to the pencil-thin, 20-inch adolescent female, finding her curled up in a "secluded, dark corner" inside the non-public area of the reptile house.

Source: nypost