Quote Originally Posted by ConcinnusMan View Post
Well, nobody said it was legal hunting. But I still have to wonder how one knows for sure that the ducklings in question, truly were orphaned? If I had a nickel for every time I've seen people pick up baby birds with the intention of "rescuing" them "because they were abandoned" when they really weren't...
The pond they were being raised in is on the edge of our property. We watched until it became clear that neither parent was going to return and the ducklings health was starting to fail (and also our cats figured out where they were...). Honestly, I'm not a huge bird fan, so I would ALWAYS prefer that the parents come back (...at least they weren't chickens)
You're totally right. In retrospect, the ducks really would have been better off with licensed rehabilitators, but I already mentioned that I was very young when that happened, and we really had no clue what to do. Luckily, they ended up being raised by a couple of Canadian geese that had lost all but one of their offspring. Our babies started following them around and they allowed it and protected them with their own. Apparently they new what they were doing much better than we did, as we continued to see our ducklings when they returned for many years (seriously; even now I'm surprised that particular technique worked!)