With dozens of successful peacock catches during his career, Walter Hetzel, animal services director, and his department might feel like the famous cartoon coyote in its perennial pursuit of the evasive Roadrunner as they try to catch the last of several escapee peacocks that went on the lam from a Temple owner in mid-March.

The owner caught all but two of the peacocks shortly after their escape. One of the two birds was caught soon after by Temple Animal Services department. But the other peacock has eluded the best efforts of the staff.

“The other one is more crafty and we’ve been chasing him off and on for nearly two months now,” Hetzel said, adding that his department has been getting calls from residents in South Temple around the Canyon Creek area with possible sightings of the rogue peacock.

“Every time we get a report of a sighting, we respond,” Hetzel said.

Hetzel said this particular peacock, unlike others he has captured in his career, seems to be more evasive. And, it seems, the peacock and the shelter personnel are getting to know each other’s tactics.

“It’s kind of the routine,” Hetzel said. “Somebody reports him, we show up and he flies on top of the house. And then he goes to the nearest two-story house he can find.”

Much like the fabled Roadrunner, the gaudily-colored peacock always manages to get away.

“This particular one seems to be, in my limited experience, a better flyer than most of them I’ve seen,” Hetzel said. “It’s automatic when he sees us. He flies to a rooftop, and then flies to a higher rooftop if he can spot one.”

Once the bird is on a roof, there is not much that can be done to catch it, Hetzel said.

“Of course, standing on the ground looking up at a two-story house is not going to do anybody any good so we eventually leave,” he said.

Dave Tate, who lives on Trailwood Drive, said he saw the bird on the roof of his house last month after he and his wife and child came home from a trip to Lake Belton.

“We came home that day and my neighbor’s kids were running across the street saying ‘there’s a peacock on your roof,’” he said.

He said the bird was perched right between his two TV satellite dishes.

“We started taking a bunch of pictures of it,” he said. “My wife is an animal lover so she put a bunch of feed out back.”

He said the peacock came down for the feed and got into a standoff with a squirrel over the food.

“The peacock fanned its tail and one of the squirrels was slapping its own tail on the ground,” he said.

Tate said that a couple days later, the peacock got into another standoff with a snake by his front door.

Tate said he did not mind the bird being around, other than the fact that it tended to call out at night when his family was trying to sleep.

Hetzel said there is no easy solution to the problem since, even if he could get permission to climb up on a resident’s two-story roof, the bird would simply fly over to the neighboring roof.

Hetzel said it is possible that the bird is getting a sympathetic response from people in some of the neighborhoods. Much like in the case of scofflaws of the past who have become folk heroes, not all Temple residents want the bird to be caught.

“Some of the people in some of the neighborhoods where the peacock has been … want us to leave it alone and others want us to catch it,” Hetzel said. “So we’re not getting 100 percent cooperation from the citizens.”

Hetzel said in spite of it all, he is confident crews will eventually be successful.

“We’ll eventually catch it because eventually the peacock will screw up and get himself cornered in a place where he doesn’t have enough ‘launching room,’” Hetzel said. “And when he gets cornered like that and can’t get up enough speed to fly up on the roof, we’ll have him.”

Which brings up the obvious question: Just how do you catch a peacock with an escape record rivaling the famous Roadrunner?

“With a net,” Hetzel said. “We could try a cage trap, but I’ve been told that a peacock generally will not enter a trap.”

He added that tranquilizing a bird could do it harm, so that option is out.

He said that based on calls, the bird seems to be migrating from street to street ever since running “afowl” of the law in Temple.

Amy Strunk, a shelter employee, said callers have reported sightings in March along roads and streets including Briar Cliff, Oakridge, Bluejay, Marlandwood, Trailwood, High Bluff Circle and Dove Lane. In April callers sighted the bird on Trailwood, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe and Victoria, she said.