Thieves steal ducks from pond before making a quack getaway
IT’S the mystery of the missing mallards and it’s driving a duck lover ‘quackers’.
Thirty-eight ducks, which were placed on a pond so that children could feed them, have been stolen in the last week.
Michael Rogan, from Carlingford, Co. Louth, reared the ducks especially to put them in a community pond in a local park for local children to enjoy, but over a dozen were stolen in a night-time raid last week.
Undeterred and driven by a determination not to let the children down, Michael replaced them with even more of their brood. Overnight, they too disappeared into thin air.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The pond is a community asset and I stocked it with a dozen ducks and drakes that I reared myself because I know how much young kids love feeding them.
‘I was gutted when someone came in under cover of darkness and stole them. There were 14 altogether.
‘Dundalk poultry club heard what had happened and they gave me two dozen more ducks, which I released into the pond the next day and, lo and behold, they were stolen overnight as well.’
The ducks can be worth up to €50 each, possibly more if used for breeding purposes, but Michael is convinced that they have ended up on a dinner table somewhere.
‘They’d be valuable enough but I genuinely believe they have ended up in someone’s belly.
‘I think whoever took them either cooked them for their own dinner or sold them onto a restaurant for cash.
‘Put it this way, I don’t think they’ll be using them as pets.’
Gardaí are now on the hunt for the disappeared ducks.
‘I contacted the gardaí after the first lot went missing but, although they have ruffled a few feathers, they haven’t found them yet and I don’t expect that they ever will.’
The resourceful Michael still hasn’t admitted defeat, though, and has just released yet another batch of the fluffy ducks on to the pond.
He said: ‘A man called round to my house last weekend when he heard what happened and handed over five drakes, which I have put on the pond.
‘I’m not taking this lying down. The kids love feeding the ducks and I won’t see them denied because of a few bad people who have nothing better to be doing that causing trouble around the place and spoiling things for children.’