HUDSON, Fla. – A man on Florida’s Gulf Coast is facing animal cruelty charges after authorities say he killed, cooked, and ate two of his pet peacocks.
The 61-year-old Hudson resident, Craig Vogt was arrested last week on a third-degree felony count of aggravated animal cruelty, according to an affidavit from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators said the man admitted he killed the birds because a neighbor had been feeding them. In a letter to the neighbor, he allegedly warned that he would “continue to kill his pet peacocks if she kept feeding them ‘to prove a point,’” the affidavit stated. It did not clarify how many peacocks he owned.
According to deputies, the man “admitted to killing the bird by cutting the bird’s neck out of spite, then bleeding it out, and then later eating the bird after cooking it on a frying pan.”
While being transported to jail, he reportedly told deputies he planned to kill the rest of his peacocks after his release so that “no one could take them,” the sheriff’s office report said.
The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office has not yet commented on what will happen to the remaining birds.
Court records show no attorney listed for the man.
First reported by News 6.
