NPS cracks down on peacocks due to vandalism, noise pollution.

Silence of the Peacocks…Squid generally prefers shrimp-watching to birdwatching, but has learned to take delight in recognizing one particular bird call. It’s a an unmistakably loud, piercing shriek that a peacock makes, one that Squid started hearing from the Monterey neighborhoods adjacent to the gated Naval Postgraduate School.

It’s all mystery behind those gates, but one night Squid was drinking a beer in the Trident Room, the garden-level bar of Hermann Hall at NPS, and the caw came again. Squid found a shimmering, practically technicolor bird perched in a tree just outside. Squid was delighted by the fact that NPS hadn’t gotten the memo on mascots being metaphors, and instead chose a school mascot that actually prowled the campus.

But Squid was also a little concerned about the rumor that just a few majestic birds had survived the reign of former President Dan Oliver, who was fired after a damning federal report was released last fall.

Squid heard the campus used to be practically teeming with peacocks, a veritable avian zoo. That’s true, as explained by Lt. Cmdr. Bill Clinton (yes, that’s his real name): Circa 1990, there were 20-plus peahens and peacocks. “They got out of hand with their mating calls and pecking cars when they saw their reflection,” Clinton writes by email. “The superintendent at the time got rid of all of the peacocks except for two males.”

Then, somehow, someone forgot the birds were a huge pain, and in the early 2000s, decided to get more peahens. Fast-forward five years, and they were captured and removed to a farm.

Squid’s not sure exactly what these are euphemisms for—“got rid of” and “removed to a farm” maybe mean bound for glory?—but Squid had been imaging Oliver in fatigues and holding a heavy weapon, shooting at the birds from behind a blind in the courtyard of Hermann Hall. But Oliver assures Squid that’s not the case: “They are exotic birds and were fun to have around, except that they make a lot of noise during mating season, especially at night. They also did pecking damage to several cars,” Oliver writes by email.

Vague stories of the birds’ demise aside, NPS folks might know how to do classified research and build high-tech gadgets, but they can’t figure out where the peacocks originated. (Funny then, that NPS also got caught in a position of not knowing exactly what its rules and regs were when security guards illegally detained Weekly photog Nic Coury a couple of weeks ago.)

They could’ve come from the Hotel Del Monte, though there’s no evidence to show it. Also possible: Post-WWII, NPS introduced the birds “to boost/build morale and esprit de corps,” according to Clinton. In that case, it sounds to Squid like it would be good timing to bring ‘em back, instead of shopping them to the farm; Squid thinks with sequestration, top leadership firings and questions about the school’s mission, it couldn’t hurt to welcome a little guy who jumps to the top of the pecking order.