Peacock column
got people crowing

OUR recent column detailing Waimea Valley Audubon Center's attempt to thin its peacock population through the humane use of traps, decapitation and bow and arrow brought much excited comment from readers, most of it in the anal-retentive mode but thankfully none of the expected clichˇd ranting of animal rights activists.

I suppose the offensiveness of killing peacocks, even annoying ones, using medieval tactics is so obvious that supporters of enormous, gaudily feathered fowl didn't feel compelled to chuck in their two cents' worth of commentary.

For the record, directors of the North Shore nature preserve named after that bird-loving artist J.J. Audubon decided to thin its flock of peacocks because they were pecking at visitors, stealing food, rifling through rental cars and mugging any animal smaller than they are, which is to say, every other creature inside the park.

A news account reported that "professional archers" were brought in because gunplay is illegal on public property, not to mention unsporting. This prompted reader Jim Harwood to e-mail:

"How does a professional archer in Hawaii earn a living? I guess archers are allowed to keep the critters they shoot, which helps in the food department, but how do they pay rent? There's always the underworld, but we seldom find whacked corpses with hunting arrows in their backs."

Jim has a point. Few professional hit men employ the bow and arrow, which I find a sad reflection on their profession.

ON THE QUESTION of professional archers, I consulted a man who probably comes the closest to being one here. He is Jay Chrisman, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who, with his wife, owns Archery Headquarters Inc., an archery supply and training center.

"I don't think anyone is a professional archer in Hawaii," he said. He thinks the guys hired to hunt the peacocks were likely just serious bow-and-arrow hunting enthusiasts. And there are a lot of them in Hawaii. Archers, including Chrisman, mainly hunt pigs, goats, sheep and deer. Hunting with a bow and arrow is a lot safer than firing off guns because you can hurt only one thing at a time. No one's yet invented a semiautomatic bow.

Chrisman said he has been invited by the Tanzanian government to come and hunt an elephant with a bow and arrow, which might say something about how Tanzania's government feels about Americans. In any case, in the nature preserve where Chrisman will stalk his elephant, peacocks apparently are not a problem.

Attorney Earle Partington points out that what we are actually talking about here are "peafowl." Peacocks and peahens are male and female peafowl. To refer to all peafowl as "peacocks" is "inaccurate and sexist," Partington says.

He could be right. But I find the term "peafowl" sissy-ish and weird to look at, and so, on this point, Earle and I will have to have a Partington of the ways.