Tourists grab a peacock that later died from stress at the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in Kunming on February 12. Photo: IC

 A peacock was apparently frightened to death by waves of Spring Festival tourists at a wildlife park in Southwest China's Yunnan Province that scrambled for selfies with the bird and plucked its tail feathers for souvenirs.

Employees at Yunnan Wild Animal Park in the provincial capital of Kunming said the 5-year-old male peacock dropped dead after a number of tourists roughly handled the bird on February 12, news portal kunming.cn reported Monday.

"There were just too many tourists for us to keep tabs on them all," said a park employee surnamed Bai.

Bai said waves of tourists ignored posted signs forbidding the touching of wildlife in their fenced habitats, which according to reports more closely resembled a petting zoo.

"We only put a stop to it after a third group had picked it up. But not even half an hour later, the peacock died on the spot."

An uploaded photo of the incident shows a visitor who appears to be pulling a feather from the peacock's tail, while in another a tourist firmly holds the bird as others pet it and take photos, newspaper Huaxi Metropolis Daily posted Sunday on Sina Weibo.

Bai explained the peacock, one of the third generation to be born at the park, was in good health before the stressful visit. 

Li Lei, the director of Oriental Animal Hospital in Yunnan, explains that birds are easily frightened and can die from stress. "Birds are known to suffer from heart failure induced by a severe fright or shock," said Li.

The park is still working out how to handle the incident.

"We've never had this happen before," said Bai.

"As of now, we are not taking action against the tourists, but are making improvements at the park to prevent such things from happening in the future," Bai added. 

kunming.cn