To the Editor:

Sadly, I stopped on my way to work on a recent morning to pick up and move off the road another dead duck and also, I think, a dead hawk, both likely hit at the same time.

The previous night on our way home from a church dinner, my husband and I stopped, along with some caring young men from Newport News, to move, off the same piece of 258, a dead duck, and a badly injured one, upside-down and unable to right itself to get off the road with its hurt wing. A third, smaller duck was along the edge of the road, some blood on its beak, just kind of wandering around the area.

Last week, I stopped and moved three dead ducks off this same area of highway. And there were others that did not make it across the road.

A small flock of beautiful ducks, some black with white, others just white, used to stay at their owners’ home just down the road. Then they learned to cross the roads, but not by flying over them or swimming under them. Despite various efforts on our part to help the ducks be safe, they continue to doom themselves as well as be a hazard to drivers.

Soon the flock will be gone. If only I had a pond, I think I would try to catch them and move them to safety.

Last week when I moved the three dead ducks out of the road, five others were sitting along the bank nearby, absolutely quiet, just looking at their friends. It appeared they were grieving.

It is more than just a sad state of affairs when people take in animals and then do not give them the best and safest care possible. Birds are certainly hard to contain without a proper type of shelter, so when that is not available, the birds should be sent elsewhere, not just allowed to meet their fate on a busy highway.

Please, owners, pen or give away the remaining ducks. They are beautiful and cannot help themselves.

Barbara Herrala
Zuni