University of New Mexico Denies Accusations Of Duck Murder At Its Duck Pond

The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is calling a fowl foul after a woman claims she saw a school employee monitoring the campus pond smash duck eggs and fatally injure an adult duck on university orders. In a letter to the editor published in the Daily Lobo, the university’s student newspaper, Cheryl Gorder – which may be a pseudonym and is not the name of any UNM student – wrote: By now I was on my feet, heading over to her as horror flooded over me. I realized that the 'white things' were duck eggs that she was killing and that the duck had been defending its nest and babies. Yes, I confronted her and asked her why she had done it. I was told that it was University policy because 'they were messy.' University Director of Communication Dianne Anderson told The Huffington Post that the school denies these allegations. She said that in the 40 years the duck pond has been cared for by university officials, there have been no complaints of this nature. While the University does relocate ducks and dispose of their eggs to control the pond’s population, school officials have said their employees do so humanely...more 

Well, it looks like there are still some important happenings in New Mexico.  And by the way, how do you "humanely" dispose of duck eggs?  Readers of The Westerner demand to know.  KOAT reports:

At the ABQ BioPark, duck expert Clay Williams said it's a problem he knows all too well. The BioPark also takes care of ducks at Tingley Beach. Instead of destroying the eggs, the zoo replaces them with dummy eggs. "They go through their regular cycle, and (it) doesn't interrupt their natural instinct to go ahead and nest. And once they're done with the dummy eggs that don't hatch they generally won't lay eggs again," Williams said. "Domestic ducks are incapable of flight. So they will not leave. They are pretty much grounded where ever you drop them off."

Pretty much a higher education approach - fool 'em and fix 'em where they can't get away.  Maybe we should send Ben Woods up there to show them an Aggie Fix.  I'm sure he'd involve the NM Space Authority too - Possibly a Deming-type Duck Race at the Spaceport...using space ships of course.  I'm pretty sure that would fix the ducks for good.

We also need to solicit UNM's advice on how to dispose of some Mexican Grey Wolves "humanely".

Here is the KRQE video report on the mallard mess at UNM:


http://youtu.be/L2LtSoB-so0