Community shaken after duck ‘shot in back’
A CLOSEKNIT Dunedin community is shaken after a domesticated duck was shot dead on the water, next to her companion drake.
Normanby resident Amy Souquet said on Wednesday morning she discovered her female duck floating lifelessly in Lindsay Creek, near the Potters Rd bridge, with a small hole in her abdomen consistent with an air rifle pellet.
‘‘She was shot in the back.’’ The ‘‘grieving’’ drake was unwilling to move from the creek, and his partner’s hidden nest of eggs had been abandoned in the bush, Mrs Souquet said.
The pair had been together for four years.
‘‘He kept going back to the place where she was found.
‘‘The next day, he wouldn’t come out from the creek.’’
Mrs Souquet said the ducks were previously allowed to wander through her neighbour’s section down to the creek, but she had now closed the gate to her yard and several of her Norwood St neighbours feared for the lives of their pets.
‘‘My neighbour down there, she doesn’t feel safe at the moment.’’
She had appealed for the shooter to own up anonymously with a note in her letterbox.
She said if she received a promise from the shooter that they would not repeat the act, she would not go to the police, but no admission had been forthcoming by yesterday.
However, in the days after the shooting a neighbour had dropped off another female duck for the drake, and the pair seemed to be getting along well yesterday.