A police officer in Boston helped capture a peacock that escaped a nearby zoo by means of an electronic mating call.

Officers were on patrol near the Franklin Park Zoo, Roxbury, when a concerned citizen approached them to alert the peacock had escaped. One quick-thinking officer then played the mating call on his cell phone, to which the glamour bird curiously responded, and was lured into a fenced-in enclosure, police said in a statement.

“Additional officers arrived at the scene and were met by an extremely large, slightly intimidating, and quite beautiful, male peacock,” police said. The 6-year-old bird, named Snowbank, was later seized by Boston Animal Control and returned to the zoo. It was reportedly doing well.

Peacocks are normally allowed to roam free in the facilities but officers believed Snowbank’ was on a mission when it fled the confinement. “It is currently mating season, and it’s possible he ventured out looking for love, in search of a peahen,” a female peacock, Associated Press reported, citing zoo officials.

The zoo was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Back in 2011, a peacock escaped the Central Park Zoo, New York City, and roamed free for nearly a day. The zoo officials appealed to the people not to harass the otherwise harmless bird, adding that they were hopeful to capture it at the earliest. The bird wandered from the facility across the street, settled down on the windowsill of an apartment building, spurring over 100 people to swarm the place to catch a glimpse.

Peacock
Peacock Reuters