Peacock dies after being manhandled by selfie hunters in Bengal village

A peacock died after being manhandled by villagers, who wanted to click selfies with it, in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Sunday, police and forest department officials said on Monday.

“We are investigating to find out what happened. What the villagers did was obviously not right. We are also trying to find out how the bird fell ill,” wildlife warden of Jalpaiguri Seema Chowdhury said.

Police and forest department officials have started a probe in the incident.

The national bird entered the Barighoria gram panchayat area of Dhupguri block on Sunday and triggered a frenzy among locals, many of whom wanted to click selfies with it.

The villagers wanted it to spread its feathers as some pulled its leg, some got hold of its tail and others tugged at its crest, officials said.

Police officers told the local media the peacock died on the way to the Dhupguri police station. The carcass of the bird was handed over to wildlife personnel of Binnaguri by the police.

Forest minister Binay Krishna Barman said he was not aware of the incident.

The death is the latest in a worrying trend of people getting close with birds and animals to click a selfie, often proving disastrous for both animals and humans.

A man in southern Odisha’s Nabarangpur district paid with his life when he tried to click a selfie with an injured bear in a forest in May. The man was killed on the spot when he stopped to relieve himself in a forest, spotted the bear and tried to click a selfie with the animal.

An elephant attacked a tourist and killed him on the spot in November last year when he tried to click a photograph on a highway in the Jalpaiguri district.