I read a story this morning about a hunt being conducted for a peafowl killer in Rolling Hills Estates California. His reign of terror has gone on for over two years and to date he has killed about fifty of these birds.
Apparently it hasn’t hurt the population; in fact one guy stated that he had a pine tree in his backyard and every night, 40 peacocks would gather in it. He stated that this went on for 20 years, until he married a woman who didn’t like the sound of them, so she made him cut down the tree.
Local historians say the peacocks and other types of birds were brought there in 1913 by New York banker Frank Vanderlip while he developed the region. He gave most of his birds away during the Depression but kept the peacocks until his death in 1937.
But the 24 peacocks that lived loose around Frank Vanderlip’s property had chicks, their chicks had chicks, and their families thrived. Now, a century later, the peafowl are so rooted in the community they’re a fixture on signs and mailboxes and have inspired a golf tournament at the local country club.
If someone in the neighborhood knows who has done this, they haven’t talked. In fact, it’s not hard to find those who say the peacocks are anything but innocent victims, as they peck the paint off cars, squawk into the night and leave a mess wherever they go. And for that reason, peafowl killer suspects could be on any block.
Until recently the peafowl killer pulled off this caper without a single witness, but recently someone saw a man pull up in a Mercedes and shoot one of the beasts with a pellet rifle and then speed away.
Wearing a badge and carrying a gun, Lt. Cesar Perea of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles has full police power while investigating cruelty cases. It’s serious business to him, so when he released a composite sketch of the peacock killer, he thought the community would immediately turn him in.
That wasn’t the case.
Perea says of the prank calls he received: “People would call in saying they thought it was Jon Voight or Mike Ditka. He also stated, “I did get a call where the message was peacocks squawking, so we had a joke in the office that the peacocks were trying to contact us and tell us who the suspect was.”
I suppose this guy Perea is just doing his job, but com’on – the city council or somebody should change the law to accommodate the majority and not some peafowl lover nut that doesn’t mind walking in bird poop. There would be no need for a vigilante if the powers that be would listen to the people.
Sometimes laws are unjust and lack any shred of common sense. The Bible speaks of rulers “who frame mischief by a law”, who “gather together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent.” – Psalm 94:20. Although Romans 13:1 does tell us to “obey the powers that be” and submit to legal ordinances; when man’s unjust laws contradict the laws of God, the Bible tells us not to comply.
I’m quite sure that God would prefer that we protest without shooting anyone with a pellet rifle (or an AR15) and perhaps follow the non-violent mantra of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but as Christians we should not obey laws that go diametrically against our religious beliefs. Sooner rather than later Christians are going to have to stand up against unjust laws that are designed to persecute Christians and deprive them of the right to worship God according to the Holy Bible.
Acts 5:29
But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.
September 3, 2014 – Click here to listen