His name is Pete and he's had a bit of an identity crisis.
Pete is a rooster and this week he took up residence on The Strand in Tauranga - a popular spot for city-dwellers, locals and tourists but certainly not for farm animals.
Pete didn't seem to mind - he was
quite content in his new habitat, taking naps on the waterfront and sleeping in the handily located flower bed.
Duty manager at Cornerstone Pub, Penny Tye, said Pete made his debut in Tauranga central on Monday and had shown no sign of leaving.
"In the mornings it walks the whole Strand cock-a-doodle-doing up and down it," she said.
Employees at the Cornerstone took a liking to the rooster and christened him Pete.
"I fed it this morning - some poppy seeds," she said. "I thought we should give it a name and I thought Pete was a good name and the girls agreed."
Pete is frightened of trains, leading one of the staff to suspect he may have fallen off the back of a train. Another theory is that a group of women may have done an amusing take on hens' night.
Ms Tye decided yesterday to call Tauranga City Council to have Pete removed because she feared for his safety during the weekend.
"The reason I started ringing around ... Friday, Saturday nights with the drunks about, they're going to start kicking it [Pete] about."
Neither the council's animal control unit nor the SPCA believed the rooster was their responsibility, so Ms Tye contacted the Bay of Plenty Times.
When the Bay Times contacted the council yesterday, communications manager Elizabeth Hughes said she could not reach animal control, so she dispatched one of her own staff members to sort out the matter.
At 4.30pm yesterday, intrepid communications adviser Marcel Currin, with the help of Ms Tye, went in search of the elusive bird, armed with nothing but their bare hands. Half an hour later Pete was caught.
And his fate?
Pete has been taken back to where he belongs - a friendly farm environment.
