As many as 30 peafowls — 17 peahen and 13 peacocks — were found dead one after the other under mysterious circumstances in a span of eight days at the Khedkar Vasti near Ranjangaon in Shirur taluka of Pune district. The location is close to Morachi Chincholi village, famous for prevalence of peacocks.

Forest officials suspect that peafowls have died of poisoning. However, the exact reason for the deaths would be known only after the report of the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL).

On August 22, local farmers — Vaibhav Khedkar and Abhijit Kalamkar — found a few peacocks dead in their farms and immediately informed the police and forest officers. A team of the Forest Department rushed to the spot and recovered five dead peacocks and 12 peahens. On August 23, six more peacocks and four peahens were found dead in the same area.

This forced Forest Minister Babanrao Pachpute and senior Forest Department officers to visit Khedkar Vasti. A probe was ordered, and a team of forest wardens was deployed for carrying out surveillance of the area. Before dying, the peafowl had vomited. Experts from animal husbandry, disease investigation section conducted post-mortem of the birds and collected samples of grains and soil from the spot.

A majority of the peacocks was found dead around poultry. The investigation team also seized a bottle of pesticides. It is suspected that peacocks died due to consumption of the poisonous pesticide that was sprayed around the poultry. The samples of pesticides were also collected.

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