DUCK TALES: Call to find widely-loved duck trio missing from Mossman River
DUCKS DISAPPEAR
A Douglas woman is having a ‘quack’ at locating a trio of missing ducks and has asked the Douglas Shire community to assist her in finding out what’s happened to them.
The three white ducks were last spotted last Thursday at the riverbank in the Foxton Avenue Reserve, where they had been for about two to three weeks.
The birds – most probably a type of Muscovy duck – waddled their way into the hearts of many locals in the short time they were there.
Sandra Failla told Newsport the birds were most likely dumped at the reserve because their obvious friendliness meant they had been owned by someone, who probably decided they no longer wanted them.
Feeling for their plight, the local resident took on feeding them twice a day with cooked brown rice and vegetables, while at the same time planning to find them a new home at a Mount Molloy property with plenty of space and three dams.
But Sandra, of Newell Beach, had to urgently fly to Melbourne for family reasons, and when she returned, the ducks had disappeared.
“Apparently, the story is, is that they’re drakes,” she said. “Nobody wants drakes, and they’re not going to know that until they grow.”
Sandra was concerned that the ducks could be washed down the river in heavy rain, that they could be attacked by a feral animal or even a crocodile, or that they would simply die of starvation.
But when she was away, a friend who was staying with her went to feed them last Thursday – and they had gone.
“Someone has taken it upon themselves to take them, I’ll guarantee it,” Sandra said. “If it was somebody, they could say ‘hey, I’ve got them, I’ve got five acres in Julatten or wherever, no stress’, and then everyone’s mind’s been put at ease.
“It’s really distressing, and I just hope that they’re okay.”
Sandra posted on social media saying she hoped the ducks had been taken somewhere with “lots of swimming facilities and not a backyard.”
She said a council ranger had offered to personally assist, in her own off work time, in moving the ducks to the property Sandra had organised to take them to. But that didn’t eventuate because of her sudden trip south.
We asked Douglas Shire Council if it knew anything about the whereabouts of the birds, to which mayor Michael Kerr responded:
“The ducks were found to be abandoned and had been in the Foxton Bridge area for more than two weeks. There were plans to relocate the ducks to a farm at Julatten but the birds were no longer in the Foxton Bridge vicinity when staff went to collect them.”
Sandra hopes that if the ducks are at a new home, that whoever might have taken them will come forward just to let the many people who had come to love the birds, know that they’re safe.
“There was a beautiful group (of people), they were brought down in a bus, and they sit there, they design and draw, draw the scenery, and the ducks were around them. And even the oldies had brought food for them, you know and were giving them sandwiches, it was just really cute.”
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