Abandoned Pet Ducks Rescued
I
absolutely hate this interview. I spent an hour talking
with the "reporter" telling her how we needed to
publicize that we desperately needed a vet because one
of the ducks (Tiny Tim) had a frightening leg infection
and needed medical help. You'll see that that's not
mentioned at all in this article. I also stressed to her
that we needed a volunteer with a jet ski to help us
catch the last of the ducks that we weren't able to
rescue that day. Instead she focused on me quacking at
duck and putting on hip boots. The Lord helps those who
help themselves. We found the vet and the boat all on
our own.
You'll notice I used
RED
to correct errors in the below article and to cut out
words that we at Majestic find offensive--as do all
duck-lovers.
 Four
lucky ducks have narrowly avoided a frigid death. Until
Saturday 11 Pekin ducks, the white, fluffy breed that
are given as pets at Easter
[BLEEP!] and lived at Mohegan Park.
Saturday morning, Kim and Tony Link, of
Lebanon, punched away the snow to get to the pond's bank
and used food to lure four of them into
a pen. The ducks
will be quarantined for a few days and will get a round
of antibiotics for bumblefoot, the black calluses some
of the ducks have gotten from walking on
the jagged rocky shore.
Then they will go to new homes or their
pictures will be posted with
Angel Wings Waterfowl Rescue,
a Utah organization devoted to rescuing ducks.
[fyi... This organization no
longer exists.]
"Very rarely does a duck make it though
the winter," Kim Link said. "Ducks will freeze in the
ice and die, which is a horrible, horrible death."
Duck foot prints in the snow lining the
banks of the pond showed how close the ducks came to
suffering frostbite, which they can get easily since
Pekin ducks are a domestic breed and will not survive in
the wild. [Okay, now she's getting
overly dramatic. No, ducks do not get frostbite from
walking in snow.]
Many well-meaning people buy the ducks
for Easter, but when they turn into adults, which takes
only six-weeks, families often set the ducks free in the
park.
The Links were trying to capture all 11
ducks and had homes for nine of them. Three people had
volunteered to be duck foster parents and three had
offered to adopt ducks.
The Links will go back to the park to
rescue the remaining ducks soon and said they hope to
find someone with a boat to help them.
After they captured the first four, Kim
Link circled the lake to goad another group of five to
the bank they had rigged with chicken wire and cages.
"Come on, babies," Kim Link said to the
ducks, punctuating her entreaties with realistic
quacking noises. The five were shy and refused to step
up on the bank. [Okay, I admit, I
did call them "babies" and quack at them, but was this
really the important part of this story? She just
interviewed me for an hour--what happened to all that
vital info. Trash bin. Sheesh--we're saving lives here,
woman. FOCUS!]
"Do you think I should put on hip boots
and go in the water with them," she eventually asked her
husband, who crouched behind a bush. She did not wade in
because they decided the ducks were too skittish for an
attempt like that to be successful.
The Links have four ducks of their own.
Kim Link had ducks as pets growing up on a farm in
Scotland, and told her husband that she wanted to have
ducks when they were married.
[Last interview I had 5 ducks, this time I have 4. Where
did my other duck go?]
Her ducks have as much personality as
any dog, she said. She described giving one of her ducks
a bubble bath recently as part of a medical treatment.
[DO NOT give your duck a bubble
bath. I had actually described how I treated a duck with
a terrible case of "wet feather." It was not a bubble
bath; I assure you.]
"Who would have thought that my getting
Donald Duck as a child would change the fate of all
these ducks," she said.
The Links are building a duck sanctuary
on their eight acres in Lebanon, a place that they call
"The Majestic."
"When I was laying out the plans, my
husband said, 'What are we building here, the Majestic?'
and so we've called it that ever since," she said.
Article originally published November
14, 2004 |
