AUBURN -- At least once a week, Torie Dunn and her daughter stop by Hoopes Park in Auburn to throw bread to the ducks. But today, something was different. "There's not as many ducks out today," Dunn said. "People always bring their kids here to feed the ducks and everybody likes to do that. I don't know why anybody would want to hurt them."
That's a question a lot of people around Auburn are asking. On Sunday, someone spotted four boys on bicycles throwing rocks at a mother duck and her twelve ducklings. The next day, City Manager Mark Palesh got a call that the mother was severely injured and that one of the ducklings had been killed. "I said on Monday, gather them all and put them inside because it was going to go below freezing that night," Palesh said. "So the whole neighborhood came out, there were about twenty five people out here chasing ducks. It was a sight to be seen."
They were only able to gather nine ducklings after two others disappeared. The mother duck, which had recently adopted four ducklings from another injured duck, eventually died. As for the kids who did it, police have a pretty good idea where to find them. "They did go over to the Herman Avenue School and I believe they caught them on television so we do have an officer that is checking it, and certainly the parents will be involved as well."
For now, the city is caring for the ducklings in a park clubhouse. Susan Cimilidora and her granddaughter stopped by today to visit the nine lucky survivors. "She came up today, asking me, where the baby ducks and the mommy duck were," Cimilidora said. "I'm totally disgusted. I just told her the mommy flew away."
