Problem Solving

Is It Illegal to Feed Peacocks?

Not under federal law, and no state law we found names them. It is illegal where a city or county code bans it, mostly around Los Angeles and in the Florida Keys, and one Florida city does the opposite and protects the birds.

No federal or state law we found makes it illegal to feed peacocks. It is illegal where a local code says so: a village in the Florida Keys, a handful of cities around Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County itself. Everywhere else, check your town's general wildlife or nuisance code.

Only the male is a peacock; the female is a peahen, and together they are peafowl. The ordinances say "peafowl," so they cover both. We compared seven rules, three in their own text. For the same question about other birds, see is it illegal to feed pigeons and is it illegal to feed wild turkeys.

The rules we read#

Read the "Your bird feeder" column first. It is where the rules differ most.

Why the answers online disagree#

You will read that peacocks are protected, and that feeding them is a crime with six months in jail. Both are true somewhere, and neither is true in general.

"Peacocks are protected." Not by the federal law that protects most backyard birds. Where peafowl are protected, a city did it, as Casselberry and Islamorada have.

"Feeding peacocks is a crime." The six months and $1,000 are Los Angeles County's, as reported in 2021. Rancho Palos Verdes, in the same county, makes it an infraction with a $100 first fine.

Federal law: not a migratory bird#

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act applies to birds in the families named in the treaties with Canada, Mexico, Russia and Japan. In its April 16, 2020 notice listing the birds the act does not cover, the Fish and Wildlife Service names the families the treaties leave out, and the list includes "Phasianidae (grouse, ptarmigan, and turkeys)." Peafowl belong to that family.

So the federal rules on removing a nest do not apply. That cuts both ways: no federal law bans feeding peafowl, and none stops a neighbor removing them.

Islamorada: the rule that reaches spilled seed#

Islamorada, Village of Islands, in the Florida Keys, created Village Code section 4-101, "Taking and Feeding of Peafowl Prohibited," by Ordinance 25-14. The council passed it 5-0 on first reading on September 9, 2025 and 5-0 on second reading on October 7, 2025, effective immediately.

The feeding rule has three parts:

• The ban. "It shall be unlawful for any person to feed any peafowl, either directly or by making food freely available for the purpose of consumption by peafowl."
• What counts as food. "Anything favorable to an omnivore's diet including but not limited to insects, seeds, grains, flower, fruits and berries."
• The garden carve-out. You may keep plants "you know, or have reason to know, peafowl eat so long as the vegetation's primary purpose is not to attract peafowl to their property."

The test is purpose. Corn on the lawn for the peacocks is feeding them directly. Seed they find is a violation only if they are the reason it is there: a hanging songbird feeder is not set out for peafowl, a ground tray in the flock's daily path is harder to explain.

The section also bans taking peafowl (hunting, molesting, capturing or killing them, their nests or eggs), except on agricultural land and for an owner "removing peafowl from his or her own property in a manner that does not physically injure" them. It sets no fine of its own.

Los Angeles County and its cities#

Peafowl have lived wild in the San Gabriel Valley and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula for decades; Pasadena Now traces the Arcadia flock to birds brought from India by the city's founder, Elias "Lucky" Baldwin.

Rancho Palos Verdes

Rancho Palos Verdes adopts the county's animal code, Title 10, and rewrites parts of it for the city. Ordinance 488 rewrote section 10.84.010: "no person shall feed or in any manner provide food to any peafowl, crow, pigeon, seagull, nondomesticated rodent, including tree squirrels or ground squirrels, or to a nondomesticated mammalian predator, including coyotes, foxes, opossums, skunks and raccoons."

• Exceptions. Only two, in 10.84.020: an animal you own and keep under a state Department of Fish and Game permit, and feeding a trapped, injured or unweaned animal while waiting for animal control to collect it. There is no bird feeder exception.
• Penalty. The feeding ban is not on the ordinance's misdemeanor list, so it is an infraction: up to $100 for a first violation, $200 for a second of the same provision within 12 calendar months, and $500 for each one after that.
• Trapping. Section 6.04.070 bars interfering with the city's peafowl trapping, by releasing a captured bird or disabling a trap.

The city dates the ordinance May 19, 2009; the signed copy says June 2. Its predator clause also bans feeding coyotes, as the county and Los Angeles city codes do; see is it illegal to feed coyotes. Because of its list, it is also a pigeon, gull and squirrel feeding ban.

Los Angeles County

On August 31, 2021 the Board of Supervisors voted 4-0, with Supervisor Kuehl absent, to introduce an ordinance amending Title 10 "by adding Section 10.84.020 that prohibits the feeding of peafowl in public." The ordinance's title, as the board recorded it, is "to add provisions to prohibit the feeding of peafowl in public places and the consequences of violations of the ordinance."

News reports citing the Pasadena Star-News give the reach and penalty: a misdemeanor in unincorporated areas and the 44 cities that contract with county animal control, with "a six-month jail term and/or a fine up to $1,000." Contract cities could choose not to enforce it, the department's director said.

We could not read the adopted text. The board's own wording says "in public places," so whether the county rule reaches a backyard is not settled by anything we read.

Arcadia and Pasadena

Supervisor Kathryn Barger modeled the county proposal on Arcadia's law, in effect since 1979, according to Pasadena Now; a deputy city manager was "pretty sure" no one had been prosecuted under it.

Section 4137, as CityRuleLookup quotes it (Ordinance 2389, 2022), bars making "any food or edible thing available ... to any wild animal, such as peafowl, on private property." The city attorney may charge a misdemeanor (up to $1,000, six months or both) or an infraction ($100, $200, then $500 within a year).

For Pasadena we have only the county motion, as ABC7 quoted it: "The cities of Arcadia and Pasadena prohibit the feeding of peafowl in their municipal codes." We did not read Pasadena's section.

Casselberry: the city that protects them#

Casselberry, near Orlando, went the other way. In 2017, after Lost Lake residents worried someone was trapping the birds, a 29-signature petition led the commission to make the whole city a bird sanctuary. City Code section 18-3, as FOX 35 reported it, makes it illegal to "hunt, kill, maim, or trap or otherwise molest" a list of birds that includes peafowl.

By 2026 some Lost Lake residents wanted that changed; one told commissioners a peacock had done more than $4,000 of damage to her car. At a workshop on Monday, October 19, 2026, commissioners showed interest in letting homeowners have peacocks humanely trapped and removed. They discussed discouraging feeding, which staff said contributes to the nuisance, but questioned whether a ban could be enforced. The city manager expects about three months of consultation with the state wildlife commission before it returns.

As of this writing, feeding peafowl in Casselberry is not banned, and trapping them is.

Does a bird feeder count?#

Peafowl feed on the ground, so what matters is what reaches it:

• Rancho Palos Verdes: "in any manner provide food," no intent word and no feeder exception. Seed you know the flock eats every morning is the riskiest case here.
• Islamorada: a purpose test. Seed set out for peafowl is covered; a songbird feeder is not set out for them, but a ground feeder in their path invites the question.
• Arcadia: "make any food or edible thing available," with no feeder exception in the quoted text. Los Angeles County is unsettled.

In every one, scattering seed, corn or bread on the lawn is the conduct the rule was written for. And the feeder is not incidental: Rancho Palos Verdes' own guidance says peafowl like to eat "wild birdseed, bread, and pet food," calls them "delectable treats," and warns that "once they're hooked, it's difficult to wean them."

Keeping peafowl off a feeder legally#

Where feeding is banned, this keeps you inside the rule. Where peafowl are protected, it is the only control you have.

• Nothing on the ground. Take away the ground feeder and any low platform feeder, and stop broadcasting cracked corn or white millet.
• Cut the spill. Sunflower hearts or no-mess blends in a tube feeder leave little to find, and a tray under the feeder catches the rest (see seed mess and hulls).
• Exclude by size. A caged feeder keeps out anything larger than a songbird.
• Use water. Rancho Palos Verdes calls it "one of the best-known deterrents for peafowl" and suggests a motion-activated sprinkler.
• Feed pets indoors and pick up leftover pet food.
• Thin roost trees that overhang the yard; the city names the Canary Island pine as a favorite. Residents add chasing the birds off consistently for a few days, and a dog walked around the property.

The city reports mixed results from residents.

Removing the birds is a separate question. Islamorada lets you remove peafowl from your own property without injuring them. Rancho Palos Verdes makes it an offense to interfere with its trapping program. Casselberry bans trapping. Elsewhere, start with the steps in neighbors and ordinances.

Where this page stops applying#

• Other towns. Peafowl live wild elsewhere, and a general wildlife feeding ban may cover them.
• Texts we could not read. The Los Angeles County ordinance as adopted, Pasadena's section, Arcadia's code from the city's own copy and Casselberry's section 18-3 itself. Islamorada's general penalty was not read.
• State law. We did not search every state's code. Florida's sandhill crane rule, by contrast, is statewide: see sandhill crane feeding laws.
• Pending changes. Casselberry may add a trapping exception.

Regional feeding advice is in the California and Florida guides. This is a reading of ordinances and public records, not legal advice.