Stray peacock rounded up in Raleigh, one of a string of exotic NC runaways
Late last week, the Wake County Animal Shelter collected its flashiest show-off of a lost pet when its workers collected a full-grown peacock in North Raleigh — tail feathers ready for action.
The iridescent blue-green bird turned up on Royal Amber Way off Six Forks Road, not far from the southern tip of Falls Lake.
The post drew some commotion Friday on a Lost & Found Pets Facebook page, where one reader reported a trio of peacocks abandoned in Wake Forest last month and another added a picture of the non-native bird nesting on a pickup truck.
“You never know what we’re going to get,” said Dr. Jennifer Federico, animal services director. “I guess peacocks are subject to poor human decisions.”
An adoption volunteer is already lined up to take this exotic bird, native to the Indian subcontinent, should all the testing come back OK.
While stray peacock sightings are rare, they do happen. The same officer who brought this bird for adoption also captured one in Knightdale, trying to get into a Target. Police in Spartanburg, SC, found one roaming streets in 2019.
Still, the peacock incident calls to mind a string of other on-the-loose animal stories. Among them:
Emus on the run
Two years ago, a pair of emus named for rappers — Biggie and Kimmie — bolted through a hole in their fence and escaped into the Chapel Hill woods.
Animal control officers found them a few hours later, tossing an orange ball around a residential driveway.
Kimmie got captured with some orange construction netting and a pillowcase tossed over her head, but Biggie moved on, stopping briefly in the yard of NC Sen. Graig Meyer. Biggie required more coaxing when his owner caught up, including talons trussed “like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
Big Birds
A pair of African secretary birds fled their enclosure at the NC Zoo in 2017 after a big gust of wind blew it open.
A month later, zoo officials were still searching for the gawky, long-legged pair around Sanford, where it was presumed they were hunting mice and snakes.
Beware the cobra
In 2021, the hunt for a venomous zebra cobra gripped North Raleigh before it turned up under a porch and was captured with a pair of tongs.
Police later discovered that the snake had long migrated away from its home nearby, where its owner kept a collection of venomous reptiles and handled them unsafely, sometimes outside in the yard or driveway.
This led to criminal charges and a change to Raleigh’s exotic animal law.
Speaking of which ...
Raleigh now prohibits dangerous wild animals, including but not limited to:
▪ “lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, jaguars, cheetahs, wolves, non-human primates, medically significant venomous snakes, crocodilians, and any hybrid or crossbreed of such animals.”
▪ Creatures that predate the 2022 law can be grandfathered in if they are registered and a fee is paid.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 12:38 PM.