Ducks Left To Die In NYC Parks After School Projects: Rescuers

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — Mary Beth Artz will rise at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning, grab her waders and head toward Kissena Park for a rescue mission. Her targets are three dumped ducks who probably won’t live long without her help.

Artz, an actress and wildlife rehabilitator from Brooklyn, is one of about a dozen rescuers who find, feed, capture and care for domestic ducks abandoned in New York City parks by people who don’t realize how unlikely they are to live, she said.

“They can’t survive out there,” said Artz. “It’s frustrating. There have been so many dumped ducks.”

Artz and her volunteer network of dumped duck rescuers have spent the past six years working to address the growing problem of abandonment that begins in primary school science labs across New York City.

“The ducks are going to the slaughter," said Artz. "They’re not going to live happily ever after on a farm.”

Chick-hatching projects — commonly used to teach students about the life cycle of living creatures — might be fun for the kids in the classroom, but are oftentimes fatal for the ducks, according to Artz and recently proposed ban from Assembly member Linda Rosenthal.

Rosenthal's bill and Artz both argue that teachers are ill-equipped to provide the care hatching ducks need.

Faulty incubators are often left locked up over the weekend and with heat lamps shut off. Some ducklings die in their shells while others are born with deformities and alone, without anyone to feed them during the first two days of their lives.

“While schools believe the projects will help students learn about biology, what they actually get is a lesson in cruelty,” said Rosenthal. “There are many more humane ways to teach young people about an animal’s lifecycle, and ones that don’t usually involve the animals death.”

“We’re just teaching everyone animals are just disposable,” added Artz. “We really want to get the word out that these hatching projects are not humane.”

Ducks that do survive the hatching project face yet another problem: It’s illegal in New York City to keep a duck as a pet so no one can provide them a home. Ducks also don't make great pets, as Artz points out, because “they poop every three seconds.”

Which is why teachers (as well as photographers who buy them for photo shoots and parents who give them as Easter presents) sometimes release the ducks into local parks, Artz said. But domestic ducks never learn to protect themselves from predators and are too heavy to fly, which means they cannot escape or migrate when winter comes.

“I don’t think they’re doing it maliciously, people just think that these ducks can just go out in the wild,” said Artz. “But it’s a death sentence.”

Until Rosenthal's ban is passed, Artz and her volunteer crew — armed with kayaks from the animal rights group Long Island Orchestrating for Nature, waders, nets and years of hard-earned expertise — will continue to seek out funding for future dumped duck rescues and caring for those they can.

It’s not easy to rescue an abandoned duck, Artz says. It can take hours to corner the bird and pluck him from the water.

“They’re smart they’re fast, they get savvy and they learn to hide, she said. But as winter approaches, the pressure mounts. “We gotta get them out.”

Artz’ most recent rescue occurred in Prospect Park three weeks ago in June, and its targets — a white pekin and a brown companion — remain her house guests.

She’s keeping the young pair in a small pen in her backyard with a wading pool as she waits to space to open up at a local sanctuary.

Artz has to wait for them to get a little older so she can determine their genders, which she will do by listening to their quacks: Females quack more loudly and more frequently than males. Females are also more likely to be accepted into sanctuaries than males because they don’t try to claim dominance over other ducks.

And while an unknown number of ducks may be facing peril, Artz says her guests seem in good shape.

“They’re doing okay,” said Artz. “It’s me that needs help.”