I thought the article was interesting in several ways, actually.
Tony DeMaria looks every bit the worried parent as he helplessly watches a mother duck and two ducklings waddle off the sidewalk into the path of a sport utility vehicle.
He frantically waves his arms to get the driver's attention. Two school-crossing guards blow their whistles to alert the unsuspecting motorist of the peril facing the web-footed, feathered family.
With some luck and quick braking action, the birds manage to make it across the two lanes of traffic on Richmond.
DeMaria is relieved. They were the lucky ones.
But DeMaria, who lives nearby, says the near miss highlights the problem facing a sizable but vulnerable duck population living in ponds on two apartment properties in far west Houston.
"It's awful," DeMaria said. "Everybody loves the ducks being here, but no one likes dead, wounded ducks. There's a dead duck nearly every day."
What lucky ducks to have someone so obsessed with them as Tony. Sounds like they're a bunch of sitting ducks if someone doesn't do something to help them. Hopefully the managers of this residential complex will get their ducks in a row and remedy the situation, but it sounds like Tony's pleas are like water off a duck's back.
DeMaria, who himself has narrowly missed hitting one of the birds as it crossed Richmond, is on a mission to save the ducks. He wants the Rio Grande Ranch apartments to put up a fence around its pond and The Lodge at Shadowlake to add mesh to its iron fence to prevent the ducks from getting out. He also wants the apartments to erect signs warning motorists about the duck habitat.
His homemade "Slow Ducks" and "Duck Xing" signs have repeatedly disappeared, he says. He has also sent faxes to apartment officials and contacted professional sign companies. Nothing.
An on-site manager with Rio Grande said the complex is unsure what to do about the problem.
"The ducks do not belong to us. They migrated here," said a woman who identified herself only as Michelle. "We don't want them to be hit by cars, either. We don't have a solution to the problem at this point."
The manager at The Lodge declined to comment.
The health department is taking a page from Michael Schiavo on this one:
A check with the city's health department revealed that the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care visited the locations about three years ago to discuss the duck dilemma.
Kathy Barton, the city's health department spokeswoman, said the department will again send a worker to talk with apartment officials on how to manage the population. Barton suggested that residents should stop feeding the ducks.
"If your tenants are feeding them it becomes your problem," she said.
At least the ducks can go somewhere else to get food if they need to, unlike Terri. Then there's the Planned Parenthood solution:
Local duck expert Marsha Harper, who rehabilitates injured ducks, said it is not unusual here to have lake communities that eventually become duck havens. She suggests discarding eggs to prevent growth of the flock.
But Tony is on a supernatural mission. In his mind, the ducks have been summoned by The Great Swan to live in the pond:
A sign on Shadowbriar includes an image of a swan etched in the concrete.
"It's like that Kevin Costner film. They built the baseball field for them to come," DeMaria said. "The ducks are a good thing, but they have to go to the next level to protect them. They invited the ducks in by putting the ponds there."
It's divinely appointed. Daffy, Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Scrooge were invited to live there, so now they merit expensive protections. Whatever. If the apartment dwellers like them so much, let them foot the bill with higher rents. Lucky for them I don't live in those apartments. I love roast duck.
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