For mean-hearted, lying stupidity, it’s hard to beat SLO’s new duck feeding ban (“Sorry Daffy and Donald: no more free meals,” April 8).
Overpaid bureaucrats who incubated this monster claim it’s ducky birth control to fight water pollution. Nonsense! It’s legislated starvation to get rid of the ducks. Pollution is only a pretext.
These are domesticated ducks. They depend upon being fed: no feed, no ducks.
Regarding birth control: Domestic ducks, aside from mallards, are poor sitters. At Laguna, most of the ducks are non-sitting breeds. Downtown, if ducks manage to survive harassment from drakes (who outnumber them by multiples) and build a nest and lay eggs in it (one a day for two weeks), they still must sit tight for 28 additional days without losing interest, having their nest raided, or being eaten by predators or run off by dogs, then spend another six weeks protecting their young from the same dangers. Runaway reproduction simply isn’t an issue needing birth control!
Regarding pollution control: Laguna Lake is home to tens of thousands of wild waterfowl, and a hundred plus domestic ducks. Why are the latter supposedly a problem, and the former not? The creeks contain constant mammalian fecal contamination and nasties like giardia. None of this comes from ducks. In fact, the worst creek pollution comes from spilled city sewage. Can they say “hypocrisy” at city hall?
— Richard Schmidt – San Luis Obispo
— Richard Schmidt – San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Apr 15-22, 2010.
