Quackdown on ducks divides Pearland
City tells rankled residents how to lawfully get rid of bird, but others cry fowl
PEARLAND — Ericka Pulido Lemuz slowed her GMC truck while rushing her daughter to school Tuesday and gasped. She had seen what she thought were two ducks crossing West Oaks Circle East — a common occurrence in this neighborhood. Nearing the animals, the 38-year-old realized they were dead.
Again? she thought. Her 8-yearold daughter, Emma, started to cry.
In pockets of Pearland, a longsimmering war has built over the white and dark-emerald Muscovy ducks that make homes in residents’ flower beds. They poop on porches. They litter feathers on mowed lawns. They tear open trash bags left curbside for pickup. One nested this week in a potted plant at Iguanas Ranas Cantina.
Enough people threatened to take matters into their own hands that the city of Pearland on Nov. 1 issued a news release telling residents how lawfully to get rid of the poultry plaguing them. The messaging spun so out of control that some thought, wrongly, that residents could gun ducks down in neighborhoods.
The duck-haters, as it were, were fed up. They were tired of picking up packages inadvertently deposited on duck feces. Tired of hosing off excrement-covered mailboxes. Tired of waiting for the bigger birds, males too fat to fly, to waddle from the driveway so they can back out.
Dead ducks are a frequent sight in the neighborhood, Lemuz said. Residents say drivers intentionally mow down ducklings. Someone else, yet to be caught, has allegedly been exterminating ducks under cover of dark with what might be a bow and arrows, the same crime that occurred two years ago.
What began as a fun neighborhood quirk is, somehow, a great big 2019 issue — reminiscent of battles over feral cats, or, as Jason Korfhage, 41, went as far as to say, immigration. Some people want to care for the ducks here; others, clearly, want to keep them out. Many can’t figure out why it’s such a problem.
“These people have nothing better to do,” said Rachel Hensley, 37, in front of her brick home, exasperated by how suburban adults were behaving. “They’re just ducks.”
Not giving up easy are the duck-lovers who have long taken care of these not-quite pets, such as the resident who put a kiddie pool out for them to swim in; the woman who bought 100 pounds of bird feed every other week for them to eat; and the neighbor who named a duckling “Danger” and was seen taking it for walks.
They staunchly defend their red-faced, web-footed friends, covering their eggs to protect them, welcoming them when they get home, opening the garage when weather gets bad. Some moved here because of the fowl — they’re incensed at being told to stop caring for animals they adore.
The division, evident in heated Facebook spats, can be seen house to house, most clearly in the plastic orange netting dividing two lots. On one side, ducks were defiantly fed. On the other, they’re unabashedly unwelcome. Recently, dead ducks were mysteriously left there — witnessed by elementary students on their way to school.
This killing methodology struck 36-year-old Shaun Drever as “a little much.”
Pearland, home to about 120,000 people and hundreds of ducks, is not alone in facing this, shall we say, quackmire. A federal rule published in 2010 categorizes the Muscovy duck, or Cairina moschata, as an invasive species that can harm native animals, damage property and transmit disease. The rule, in spite of a city law protecting birds, allows for their removal.
Muscovy ducks are domesticated worldwide, said John Kanter, senior wildlife biologist with the National Wildlife Federation. Sometimes they escape or are let loose and find unintended homes near man-made ponds and grassy areas such as those in the suburbs.
According to the city, the ducks can be captured on personal property and taken to three border counties where they’re considered natural — Hidalgo, Starr and Zapata. Or they can be killed in some way — unspecified by the city — that complies with weapons and animal cruelty laws.
Animal control employees will pick up the dead ducks but won’t catch and remove them alive. Increasingly, they’re warning people such as Martha Larson, 78, to stop feeding the ducks or face what she said was a daily $200 fine. (It can go up to $2,000.) So far, the city says those warned have complied.
The confrontation had Larson, who grew up on a Kentucky farm, “swelled up like a frog.” She almost wanted them to lock her up, she said, and then they’d all be on TV. Were they going to make her stop feeding hummingbirds next? “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” she said.
What was a delight to Larson became unpleasant to others. Sarah Riffel, 26, who grew up near Larson on Dogwood, aka “Duckwood,”
“At the end of the day, do you want to be enemies with your neighbors over ducks?”
Kimberly Rathbun
named the original ducks she found Wallis Simpson, Richard Nixon and Sirius Black. She enlisted the whole phonetic alphabet — Alpha, Bravo, Charlie — naming the next 26.
Neighbors later saw coyotes. Two hawks moved into her chimney, eating ducklings. Her Dachshund named Bentley discovered one that a hawk dropped, and she had to get a shovel from the garage to bury it. On Aug. 5, she counted 47 ducks in front of her house. Enough was enough.
“We don’t want them here anymore,” she said. “It’s time to get rid of the ducks.”
In recent weeks, the duck population may have thinned. This is to Craig Batcheller’s great relief. His 8-year-old grandson has a condition that weakens his immune system. At 2, he got salmonella after playing in the front yard barefoot.
Batcheller, 60, has fought to see the ducks gone. “He got sick here,” Batcheller said. “What if it was your child who was sick?”
Homeowners associations for two affected neighborhoods — Westwood Village and West Oaks — declined to comment. The city fields duck calls from Lakes of Highland Glen as well.
A fourth neighborhood, Cabot Cove, apparently got rid of many because calls from there largely stopped.
“At the end of the day, do you want to be enemies with your neighbors over ducks?” posed Kimberly Rathbun, whose husband is president of the West Oaks HOA. She asked her mail carrier to stop feeding them, she said, but didn’t want to ruffle feathers.
On a cold Wednesday, four ducks loitered near Batcheller’s house. One preened its belly. A second puttered around the curb. A third sat. All looked oblivious to the drama in the neighborhood.