I have a soft spot for ducks. Perhaps it’s because we used to have pet ducklings when I was a kid.
This week at work, I noticed that our cafeteria’s courtyard has once again been visited by wild ducks. This happens fairly often - if you work where I do, you should know exactly where this is. Apparently a few ducks have made it a habit to return to this courtyard, a nice quarter-acre or so of greenspace surrounded by two buildings and their connected walkways, year after year to lay eggs and raise ducklings.
This would be a good idea, since the courtyard is relatively free of duck predators, but only if the following conditions were true:
- There was a natural source of running water in the courtyard.
- There was a suitable variety of vegetation and fauna for ducks to consume.
- The courtyard didn’t happen to be in a space filled with humans.
Sadly, none of these conditions are true, and the courtyard, while an attractive target for brooding mother ducks, is not a great place to raise them to maturity.
Every year, our company calls a wildlife relocation specialist to remove the ducks in a humane fashion. One hopes that they coax them into a large, luxurious cage with bits of lettuce or promises of a full-wing manicure, or whatever entices wild ducks to move themselves (and their adorable ducklings) away from a comfortable, if unsuitable, living space and be released into “the wild”. (If there were truly any “wild” left around here, which I seriously doubt.)
Anyway, one family of ducklings is back, and the courtyard has been closed to human trespassers until the ducks can be removed.
As is my habit, whenever I get a chance to pass by the courtyard, I pause to take in the green scenery, as a refreshing break from the dull grayness of the interior of our offices. On Monday, I saw the mother duck standing around, with three of her brown-and-yellow ducklings playing near her, and generally having a good time.
Further away on the paved walkway, I could see a fourth duckling, which had somehow flipped over and was stuck lying on its back. It was initially still, and I thought that it had perished or succumbed to the heat, but eventually I saw it move, struggling to right itself and run back to mother.
It tried several times in the minutes that I stayed to watch, and peeped plaintively (and weakly) for assistance from its parent, who was obviously close enough to see (and hear) the duckling and come to its aid. But the mother duck ignored the poor duckling, and eventually wandered away with its remaining ducklings in tow.
On one hand, it was a sad spectacle. Why didn’t the mother duck walk over to assist, and flip over the poor duckling so that it could stand up again, drink some water, and recover from its ordeal? It seemed cruel and heartless, and I wanted very badly to enter the forbidden courtyard, pick up the duckling, comfort it and give it some much-needed water, and send it on its merry way to rejoin its mother and nest-mates.
But I had to restrain myself, for I remember that while it may seem cruel, nature has a way of ensuring the survival of a species by allowing its weakest members to be weeded out, by various means. Perhaps this duckling was weak to begin with - after all, a stronger duckling would have been able to flip itself over (or wouldn’t have been stuck on its back in the first place), and my interference could have allowed a weaker animal to survive and carry on its inferior genetics, to the overall detriment of the species.
This is the same reason why predators usually aim for the weak, the young, and the old. It may seem cruel from a human perspective, but it doesn’t need to be judged by a human perspective. Nature simply is, and cares little for what we deem valuable, humane or merciful.
The other reason is that ducks (like many animals) are prolific breeders, and it’s not uncommon to see broods of many ducklings. This is good because not all ducklings survive to adulthood (or at least until they get mature and strong enough to fly away from danger). Snapping turtles and other predators routinely pick off trailing ducklings in water or on land, and it’s to the advantage of the species that ducks lay larger nests. Not nearly as extreme as the frog/tadpole ratio, but still quite large when compared to human standards.
Still, it was tough to walk away from the window, and leave the poor duckling to its fate.
