Road death of ducks captured on camera

A SECURITY camera has captured the moment the driver of a vehicle mowed through a family of ducklings and one adult, seconds after a woman trying to help them moved from the middle of the road.

Queenstown resident Rolf Liechti reviewed the footage from the camera, fitted to a Robins Rd business, shortly after the incident earlier this month and contacted police that day to lay a complaint.

The footage shows a group of about nine ducklings and two adult ducks waddling on the footpath before venturing on to the road, near Queenstown Primary School.

The family has two nearmisses with vehicles, while a car in the opposite lane slows before almost coming to a complete stop.

A woman in a purple jacket attempts to help the ducks across the road, going into the middle of the lane and then walking back to the side.

She can be seen gesticulating to the driver of the redcoloured 1996 Subaru Legacy as it approaches to slow down, but the car does not appear to, driving over several of the ducks, while the woman stands just off the footpath.

Mr Liechti said the mother and one of the ducklings were killed ‘‘so that means they’re all dead now, probably’’.

‘‘Right behind [the car] you can see there’s a school sign, ‘Slow for Children’, and you can see the woman is right out in the road in her big purple coat . . . it was obvious.

‘‘Whenever we see them [ducks] we always stop the traffic and help them across the road . . . everyone does . . . because they go across the road to the creek.

‘‘We even had signs up there last year after someone ran over them, but this guy just didn’t even seem to give a s..., either that or he was on the phone or something or wasn’t looking, who knows.

‘‘It just didn’t seem right — if someone’s out there stopping ducks, you think you’d stop.’’

He called police to report the incident that day, but says he was instruc ted to ‘‘do it online’’.

He had not heard anything further, he said.

A police media spokeswoman confirmed a complaint had been received about 5pm on October 10 reporting a driver ‘‘driving dangerously and could’ve hit a lady and some ducks’’ earlier that afternoon.

‘‘The information provided during the call did not indicate that any offence had been committed or that anyone had been injured,’’ the spokeswoman said.

‘‘It didn’t appear from the information provided during that call that an offence had been committed so no further action was taken.’’

Mr Liechti sent the footage to the Otago Daily Times after reading about two police officers in Dunedin who escorted a mother and her ducklings to safety on State Highway 1 by Green Island last Thursday.

‘‘I saw the big hoohah in the Otago Daily about the cops putting on their lights and sirens and heading off to help some ducks cross the road [in Dunedin] and in Queenstown, when it happens, they weren’t even interested.’’

❛ It just didn’t seem right — if someone’s out there stopping ducks, you

think you’d stop