Boparai Kalan (Nakodar): Balbir Singh gets up from his cot, takes maize from bags inside a room and scatters the grains on the roof of house. The old man has been doing it as routine for 15 years to conserve national bird peacock.

THRISSUR: Kerala agricultural University (KAU) Vice-Chancellor Viswambharan on Monday ordered an inquiry by a five-member highlevel expert committee into the alleged death of peacocks near the Cashew research Station of the KAU at Madakkathara, near here.

Dean of the College of Veterinary and animal Sciences Dr Nanu will be the chairman of the committee.

The Assam State Zoo has received the green signal for breeding a rare species of pheasants, a measure that brings in fresh hope to an endangered bird of the region. It is also a development that has reinforced the zoo

Pune,

Pune, August 25 Even as the mystery behind the deaths of 27 peafowls in Khedkar Wasti near Ranjangaon in Shirur taluka remains unsolved, villagers of Raut Wadi in Shikrapur, about 15 km from Khedkar Wasti, have alleged that unknown miscreants may have killed two peacocks in the region for meat.
The villagers suspect that a group of construction labourers working on a water project being implemented by the state government near Raut Wadi may have killed the fowls.

The chicks at the Iskcon temple. File picture Krishnagar, July 1: Six out of the 14 peacocks seized by the forest department from the Iskcon temple in Mayapur last month have died, apparently unable to cope with weather fluctuations. Although seized, the birds were left behind in the temple's cages as the forest department had failed to decide on an alternative accommodation. A government veterinary doctor, who went to see the birds on a call from the temple on Saturday, informed divisional forest officer Lipika Roy about the death of six chicks only yesterday.

They confessed that they hunted the birds to extract some oil Thoothukudi Forest Department officials on Sunday arrested three poachers on charges of hunting peacocks and recovered eight slain birds at Vilathikulam in Thoothukudi district. Acting on a tip-off that peacocks were hunted in areas of Inasurai, Koothalurai, Kammapatti, Chennamarettypatti and Pillaiyarnatham, the District Forest Officer, Nathan, constituted a patrolling team. The team raided places in Koothalurai, Kammapatti, Chennamarettypatti and Pillaiyarnatham on Saturday night.

When the clouds gather over Idupulapaya, local people can now get to see peacocks dancing. After gifting a botanical garden, a deer park and an IIIT for Idupulapaya in his native district Kadapa, the Chief Minister, Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, has ordered the release of 67 peacocks and peahens there. Wags say that there is no end for the patronage which the Chief Minister extends to Idupulapaya. His family has estates near the Edupulupaya Reserve Forest and the Chief Minister had given away hundreds of acres of land to the poor braving criticism from the opposition.

Krishnagar: The forest department has asked Iskcon to hand over eight peacocks caged on the temple premises in Mayapur, Nadia. In a letter written last week, the divisional forest officer has asked the temple authorities to hand over the national birds "immediately' "Otherwise, the department will have no other option than to seize them.' The number of peacocks, eight when a forest department team had gone to the temple on an inspection a few weeks ago, has gone up to 14 over the past two days following the birth of six birds.

CAN a peacock, considered to be the National Bird, die of starvation? That too in a Lord Muruga Temple? ( Mythologically, Lord Muruga travels on Peacocks). Death of a peacock in Parry's Kandasami Temple, also known as Muthukumara Devastanam on April 3 ruffled many a feather as some persons in the know attribute the death to starvation. Veterinary doctors say it died of some poultry disease.

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