2 peacocks roaming Lloydminster after escaping breeder 12 days ago
Lloydminster residents are on the lookout for two peacocks named "Big Blue" and "No Toes."
Big Blue has been spotted since the pair of males went missing on April 6 but No Toes' whereabouts is a mystery.
They broke free of their cages that day as they were being unloaded at a rare and exotic sale.
"(The sale worker) had his back turned and two of them jumped up and broke the zip lock things on the cage and flew out. Well, he had his hands full there so they off and went towards the Lloydminster graveyard and golf course," owner and breeder Rob Hofer told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday.
"Oh well," he recalled thinking, "I guess the commission isn't going to the exhibition on those two."
Having raised peacocks since about 2010, Hofer calls himself a hobbyist.
At one point, his pride grew to 22, so he decided to sell some of the males.
Big Blue and No Toes were about five years old and could have fetched about $300 each. Females go for around $150, he said.
"Now they're just all over the place, I guess," Hofer said.
"Animal control did phone me a couple of days ago and she said, wonder if I could go collect my peacock? I said, 'I don't even know where they are.'"
But Big Blue's movement is haphazardly being tracked online by community members. Local Facebook users have published proof of life three times since Tuesday.
"They're very invested in finding the peacocks and updating their locations to our pure joy and entertainment," Hofer's daughter, Brandi, said.
"People are so concerned and it's very sweet and we're grateful that they are."
Peacocks can fly high and sleep in tall trees at night. Hofer described the animals as smart and very cautious and, therefore, difficult to catch.
However, Hofer said it would be possible to trap them in a shed and that he would help anyone who found them.
Big Blue and No Toes are also OK in the current temperatures, Hofer added.
The family can be contacted through Facebook. Brandi is offering her art as a prize to anyone who helps.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
President Joe Biden calls Japan and India 'xenophobic' nations that do not welcome immigrants
President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the U.S. on immigration.