Walk the grounds of Ca’ d’Zan today and you’ll still see them—descendants of John Ringling’s original peacocks, strutting across manicured lawns like they own the place. Which, in a way, they do. These birds have outlasted the Ringling fortune, survived the Great Depression that destroyed their owner, and continue to scream their prehistoric calls across Sarasota Bay as if nothing has changed since 1926. But here’s what the tourists snapping photos don’t understand: Ringling didn’t import peacocks for their beauty. He brought them as living proof that he’d made it, that a circus barker from Iowa could own the same birds that graced Indian palaces and European estates. The peacocks were never pets—they were performing props in his greatest act: playing aristocrat. And like everything else in Ringling’s life, they were both the symbol of his success and the warning everyone refused to see.
Let’s talk numbers, because Ringling certainly did, obsessively, right until the end. In 1925, he was worth an estimated $200 million in today’s money. By 1926, he’d spent $1.5 million building Ca’ d’Zan (about $24 million today), plus another fortune importing art, furniture, and yes, peacocks from across the globe. These weren’t your garden-variety birds—Ringling purchased breeding pairs from specialized aviaries, the kind that supplied European royalty. Each bird cost what a typical American made in a month. Their specialized diet, the groundskeepers to manage them, the veterinary care—it was a bleeding money pit disguised as moving art. But that was the point. Ringling didn’t want pets; he wanted everyone to know he could afford to let money strut around his lawn, screaming.
The timing is what makes you wince. Ringling was importing peacocks and gold-leafed ceilings while secretly leveraging everything he owned against increasingly risky investments. He was playing shell games with circus profits, New York real estate, and Florida land speculation, convinced he could juggle forever. The peacocks arrived at Ca’ d’Zan in 1926, peak hubris season. By 1929, when the stock market crashed, Ringling had already mortgaged the mansion twice. By 1932, he was borrowing money to feed the elephants while peacocks still paraded around his estate eating imported grain. He died in 1936 with $311 in his personal bank account, the circus in receivership, and those damn peacocks still strutting around like nothing had changed.
But here’s where it gets mystically interesting, even without curses. Peacocks in every culture that keeps them are symbols of dangerous beauty—the evil eye made flesh and feather. In Greek mythology, the peacock’s eyes are the hundred eyes of Argus, the watchman who sees everything, transferred to the bird’s tail by Hera after his death. In Indian tradition, they’re associated with Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, but also with warning—their screams allegedly predict rain and danger. In medieval Christianity, they symbolized resurrection but also pride, the deadliest sin. Theater people won’t allow peacock feathers on stage because they represent the evil eye, watching and waiting for hubris to trip you up. Ringling brought dozens of these walking warning systems to his estate, their tails a hundred eyes watching his empire crumble while he refused to see what was right in front of him.
The real metaphysical joke is that peacocks are also garbage birds with gorgeous PR. (And I’m a bird person, so that should tell you something.) They’re mean as snakes, loud as freight trains, and destructive as toddlers with hammers. They attack their own reflections, destroy gardens, and scream at ungodly hours for no discernible reason. They’re basically fancy chickens who’ve convinced the world they’re phoenixes. Which makes them perfect mascots for the circus itself—all spectacle, no substance, beautiful from a distance but vicious up close. Ringling’s peacocks terrorized his guests, destroyed his wife Mable’s gardens, and cost a fortune to maintain, but he kept importing more because the image mattered more than the reality. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same philosophy that had him gold-leafing ceilings while his creditors circled like vultures.
The descendants of those original peacocks still patrol Ca’ d’Zan, now a museum where tourists pay to see how the mighty fell. The birds are protected, fed, and maintained by the state of Florida—technically owned by the public now, just like the mansion, the art, everything Ringling couldn’t hold onto. They’ve outlived him by almost ninety years, still screaming their harsh calls across the bay, still spreading their tails in displays of beauty that dare you not to look. Docents will tell you they’re part of the estate’s “historic character,” but anyone who understands symbols knows better. They’re living reminders that pride doesn’t just come before a fall—sometimes it survives the fall, struts through the wreckage, and screams at dawn over the ruins.
When you see them—and if you visit Ca’ d’Zan, you will see them—remember what you’re really looking at. Not beautiful birds, but Ringling’s hubris made flesh, his refusal to see the obvious, his belief that if something looked magnificent enough, it must be magnificent. The peacocks cost him thousands while his empire collapsed, but he kept them because admitting he couldn’t afford peacocks meant admitting the greatest showman on earth was just another broke circus barker in a borrowed palace. The birds survived him because that’s what symbols do—they outlast the people who think they’re just decorations. Every time one screams across the museum grounds, it’s not a call. It’s a laugh. The joke was always on Ringling, thinking he owned them, when really, they were just waiting for him to lose everything so they could inherit the stage.
