Why Easter is bad for ducks
On Christmas Eve, two Pekin ducks were found
frozen to a pond in Smithville, Ohio. They flapped their
wings and squawked, fruitlessly struggling to free
themselves until two locals, Maiara and Helder Bertolucci,
spotted them. The pair slid on their stomachs over razor-thin
ice and chiseled the animals free.
The rescued ducks—later named Olaf and Elsa, after
characters from Disney’s Frozen—were two of 109 domestic
ducks abandoned in a pond outside of a restaurant. A local
group ________ Good Sprout Rescue and Sanctuary rescued
the animals; two died, but the rest were rehomed to
sanctuaries or adopted. Every spring, the Barn Restaurant
would buy a hundred new babies for its patrons to enjoy—
but since this incident they’ve __________ not to do so
again.
Every year in springtime, particularly at Easter,
many people “impulse buy” ducklings as gifts, often for their
kids. But after the holiday, sometimes months later, animal
rescuers routinely see an uptick in abandoned adult ducks in
local parks and ponds, Di Leonardo says. There’s no
________ data on how often this happens, but he estimates
tens of thousands of domestic ducks are dumped each year
throughout the U.S. His organization rescues as many as 500
ducks per year in the New York City area alone.
Fonte: (National Geographic – adaptado.)