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April 1 - April 7, 2022
TO THE RESCUE!
Abandoned ducklings found near Astoria Park being treated for abuse at Long Island shelter
BY BILL PARRY
At first glance, the rescue of two ducklings
near Astoria Park last week seems
like a warm and fuzzy tale just in time for
the Easter season. However, the man who
rescued them described something far more
nefarious.
John Di Leonardo, the anthrozoologist
and president of Long Island Orchestrating
for Nature (LION) in Riverhead, says he was
alerted through social media that the two
ducklings were spotted in Astoria Park with
a very young chicken. Two LION volunteers
located the ducks across the street from the
park “looking terrified” behind the fence
of an apartment building, but the chicken
wasn’t found, Di Leonardo said.
The volunteers had to negotiate with the
landlord for hours before they were allowed
onto the property to rescue the ducklings,
which were brought to the shelter in Riverhead
where they are recovering.
The two ducklings are no more than
8 weeks old and had their toes cut off, Di
Leonardo explained, adding that fowl are
exempted from federal protections,” including
the Animal Welfare Act and the Humane
Slaughter Act, so they are routinely raised in
filthy, windowless sheds by the thousands.
Due to the stress of their confinement, they
may self-harm and cannibalize one another,
but rather than bettering their squalid conditions,
farmers cut off their toes to minimize
the harm they can do to themselves or others.
“Baby birds are thinking, feeling persons,
LION president John DiLeonardo is urging Queens residents to “keep animals off their plate,”
and out of their children’s classrooms. Photo courtesy of LION
not Easter photo ops, school science
experiments or trash to be discarded when
you don’t want them anymore,” Di Leonardo
said. “Abandoning a chick or domestic duck
is cruel and illegal, and no different from
abandoning a dog or cat. Domestic ducks
have tiny wings, large bodies and no camouflage.
They don’t know how to forage adequately
and cannot fly or migrate. They are
as different from wild ducks as a housecat is
from a tiger and are literally sitting ducks for
predators and cruel people when abandoned
to the wild.”
The two ducklings rescued near Astoria
Park were emaciated and suffered from
bumblefoot, a type of staph infection that is
common in ducks.
Di Lorenzo and his volunteers rescued
more than a dozen waterfowl and geese from
a Forest Hills home in January. The last of
those rescued birds were recently placed in
their “forever home.”
While his animal advocacy organization
rescues hundreds of birds each year, he
said the average person can save 200 baby
animals just like the two ducklings annually
simply by leaving them off their plate. LION
is launching a major campaign to end the
exploitation of chicks, ducklings and other
baby animals during the spring, when they
are abandoned en masse after school hatching
projects and around the Easter holiday.
Di Leonardo said the adage “Adopt, don’t
shop” applies to all animals and that animal
abandonment is a crime.
“When introduced into nature, nonnative
species disrupt natural ecosystems,
which rely on the migratory behavior of
wild ducks and geese and the natural recovery
period that comes with their absence,”
Di Leonardo said. “They can also spread
disease to native species, including highly
pathogenic avian influenza, which is deadly
to humans and was recently detected in a
Suffolk County flock. Should these domestic
ducks and geese breed with wild birds, their
offspring will likely be flightless as well,
further disrupting the ecosystem and exposing
the young to the same dangers as their
domestic parent. The National Park Service
has noted that ‘threats from invasive species
play a critical part in the loss of native biodiversity,’
and recognizes that invasive species
frequently start out as pets.”
Vol. 10, No. 13 40 total pages
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