DFO warns against consuming peacock meat

• 45 peacocks so far found dead
• Miscreants mix poison with grains

Jangaon (Warangal): Consuming flesh of peacocks would cause leprosy, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO-North), V Linga Rao has cautioned.

Many of those who eat the flesh of the birds do not know this, he said. This, he said, in the wake of killing of a large number of peacocks at Chitur in Lingala Ghanpur mandal.

The incident of poisoning of peacocks by unknown miscreants has come to fore here on Monday and caused lot of concern among bird lovers. The culprits were said to have used paddy mixed with poison to kill the birds and spread it along a tank bed at Chitur. It was said that about 45 birds were found dead at the village.

In recent time the peacock population has been on the rise in Jangaon, Maddur, Cheriyal and surrounding mandals where hillocks interspersed with forest patches provide a much-needed green cover to the birds. They lay eggs amid hillocks which were not disturbed as there would be no movement of people. The locals, even if they stumble upon the nests, would not disturb and try to protect the birds.

The killing of birds suspected to be handiwork of some offenders from outside who came to know about the peacock movements around water near the tank. The birds that consumed poison have been dying for the past three days.

On Monday the farmers found peacocks dead and alerted the forest officials. The forest officials conducted post-mortem on dead peacocks to know the exact reason for the death of the birds. According to a villager, Yadagiri, some people were killing the birds to sell them to road-side dhabhas which offer the peacocks as special dish.

DFO Linga Rao said they found eight dead peacocks in the village on Monday. It was a deliberate act of miscreants. However, the poisoning of the birds seems to be a deliberate act; soon the culprits would be nabbed, he added.