Sometime between 1875 and 1880 Elias J “Lucky” Baldwin imported from India a small number of peafowl for his ranch in Arcadia. When he died his daughter sold off the ranch piecemeal and, eventually, the state of California and Los Angeles county together bought 111 acres that still had the birds on it, and made the land the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, and the peafowl have been going strong ever since. The L.A. Times has a neat article about the history.
That’s interesting! Esp as I’ve just been seeing plenty of them here in India.