Population recovery for Peacocks

gnappi

I read that a couple of years ago everything except the south side of Dade had nearly 100% of the peacocks wiped out. But, I went out in the south end of Palm Beach county (Del Ray) a few weeks ago and brought in a fair number of 4-5 lb peacocks.

Yesterday I stopped at a small lake in Pompano and the lake was teeming with ~1-2 lb. peacocks in the shallows.

I was surprised that there were so many so far "up north" guessing that some places had a micro climate suitable to them surviving.

So, how far north did some populations survive? Anyone further up into central PB county seeing them?

waldnerr

There's a decent number of peacocks in the Lake Ida/Lake Osbourne system. My guess is that this is due to natural selection: while most of the peacocks were killed during the prolonged cold spell a few years ago, some cold-resistant individuals managed to survive and have since repopulated. It would be very interesting to compare proteins/DNA between the peacocks in, say, southern Dade and those in Palm Beach County, and see if differences are apparent.

BackyardAngler

I used to live on the Broward/PB county line. Before the winter of 2010 I could watch them pack-hunt from the upstairs bathroom window in the canal behind my house. I really missed them after 2010 but the snakehead boom helped fill the gap. I moved in fall of 2014 and they had just made it back up to the PB line. I really miss fly fishing from my back yard for the pea's. I'll have to make due with Reds.