Saturday, November 16, 2013

Malnourished Waterfowl


This is what malnutrition looks like in watefowl.  This feral domestic duck is in the Dunkirk Harbor suffering from a condition called "angel wings."  It is caused by people feeding it BREAD!  This can cause a nutritional deficiency that makes their wings grow the wrong way and renders the bird flightless.  Please people, don't feed bread, cereal, crackers, cookies or other human junk food to the birds!


5 comments:

  1. Wish we could get this information and photo in all the local newspapers! I see folks feeding all sorts of food to the ducks - usually right next to the "DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS" sign! LOBearsian

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for sharing this. I was not aware of this problem.

    I found an article that lists some more nutritionally appropriate foods people can give to ducks if they really want to feed them.

    http://birding.about.com/od/birdfeeders/a/whatduckseat.htm

    Best,
    Eric

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with the first comment: I, too, see people feeding ducks bread right next to the signs that warn them not to. It's amazing how selfish some people can be just to see the ducks come closer! Good post, Gale; it would be great to get this out to some local newspapers!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you all for your comments! I just wrote a letter to the Dunkirk newspaper asking them to consider publishing an article on this topic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your photo should accompany the sign Gale. Very disturbing.
    How can we get a sign made to be used at ALL sites?
    "Although eating junk food won't cause you to grow "angel wings", it can do that to waterfowl."

    ReplyDelete

Long-tailed Duck