Disfigured female ducks at the park... : (

[SolarDuck]

I keep looking at pictures on google of this lake you are talking about and man... it seems there is a massive problem with people dumping domestic animals, much larger than the problem at my local park. I counted like 4 or 5 different types of domestic duck in the pictures, and just way too many swans. Apparently there was a turkey someone dumped there awhile back and it lived there until it died. Are there dumped domestic geese there too? Some google images pics I see are showing 5-6 domestic geese.

In case anyone wants to see what I am talking about here is the google maps link with the pictures.
Lake Morton
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Dc2mw3HoLCBpryj36

I feel like they should really catch all of the domestic ducks, geese, and swans to rehome. I'm sure that crazy amount of swans isn't very good for the natural wildlife there, especially since we get a lot of migratory waterfowl in Florida that need those resources the swans take up.

 

[SolarDuck]

I'm updating this thread because I visited this park yesterday, I'm not sure if it is the same duck, but there was one in particular that was very beaten up. Every single female duck in the park had signs of over mating, but one particularly bad. I sent another message to the city including pictures suggesting that they separate her into one of the fenced in enclosures they have there with one single female duck friend just until she heals.

 

[Isadora]

Poor baby

I'm updating this thread because I visited this park yesterday, I'm not sure if it is the same duck, but there was one in particular that was very beaten up. Every single female duck in the park had signs of over mating, but one particularly bad. I sent another message to the city including pictures suggesting that they separate her into one of the fenced in enclosures they have there with one single female duck friend just until she heals.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Any news on if they responded and did anything?

 

[RosemaryDuck]

Oh wow, I'm not sure why this thread never gave me any notifications that there were new posts. I'm just seeing @SolarDuck s posts now.

I'm not sure if that's the same duck (it looks to be), but yeah. This park seems to have a huge dumping issue. After the initial email conversation the mayor basically left saying to contact if I saw her again. I haven't but it looks like you did! Hopefully they do something about it this time.

 

[SolarDuck]

Any news on if they responded and did anything?

Nothing, I messaged the city but they just said they forwarded it to the parks department. It's quite a drive for me but I'll be going up there again at some point over the next couple weeks to check for her.

 

[SolarDuck]

Just judging by the signs I saw there it seems that the swans are property of the city of Lakeland and they feed them, and keep the chicks protected until they are grown so they take good care of the swans. The thing is, I assume since they have waterfowl pellet dispensers and hanging feeders in the water it makes it a very appealing place for people to dump off their ducks and geese. The city didn't really seem to care about the ducks didn't have any signs mentioning them, and had way too many males.