The ducks appear to be slowly coming back to “Duck Road,” according to readers responding to our Feb. 15 column about the mysterious disappearance of the familiar waddling inhabitants of Kainui Drive in Kailua.
Another reader said “quite a few” have been seen on the levee mauka of Kaha Park, and speculated that “many of them might be from Kainui Drive.”
Others who contacted us, however, said the probable cause of their dwindling numbers is outsiders coming into the neighborhood and snatching the ducks.
Among those who hold that belief is Melody Holland, a longtime Kainui Drive resident who said her family has grown attached to the ducks, several of them “momma” ducks that have hatched eggs in a protected site near her front window.
The most recent was “Puk Puk, a very dear pet for the past six years,” she said. “She was beautiful, all white and for some reason unusually friendly. She would bring her new ducklings to our kitchen door to proudly parade them by. She allowed us to pet her and hold her and even allowed our grandchildren to hold her babies.”
But in December, Puk Puk, who usually greeted Holland when she returned home, Puk Puk’s daughter and both their nests of eggs, plus some “boy” ducks all disappeared, she said. “You think well, maybe one of them got hit by a car, but to have all five disappear!”
She and her neighbor believe someone took the ducks, possibly someone in a boat.
The police department said taking the ducks, for whatever purposes, would not be a crime because they are not an endangered species.
However, Holland asks for people’s compassion.
Although some people may not care for them, “As a whole, I believe everybody who lives on Kainui Drive loves having the ducks,” she said. “Can you please let the public know that these are not ducks for the taking.”
State Duck Control
A person who signed herself “Duck Lady” sent us a Honolulu Advertiser clipping from 2008 (http://is.gd/PIQJJf), which reported that some Kailua residents were upset about a state Department of Land and Natural Resources program to shoot feral ducks considered a threat to native and endangered birds.
She said some of the Kainui Drive ducks probably “died of natural causes, pollution, dogs, etc.,” but also implied the state might be involved because it “was still hiring a contractor to shoot Muscovies and mallards.”
However, Jason Misaki, the department’s Oahu wildlife manager, emphasized, “The only place we are doing control work like that is Hamakua Marsh and Kawainui Marsh,” and only as needed to protect native and endangered birds.
“We don’t do any work unless it’s on lands directly under our control,” Misaki said. The work is contracted mostly to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or handled sometimes by qualified staff, he said.
Last year, four mallards were “removed.” None has been killed so far this year.
Misaki said there are only very small areas in both marshes that are prime habitats for the Hawaiian coot, Hawaiian moorhen and Hawaiian stilt.
“There are only so many birds that can be there, so anything else directly competing with them for space, food or anything is definitely a threat … (that) we take very seriously because these are endangered species,” he said.
“Controlling ducks is part of our ongoing maintenance and monitoring of the sites.”
Mahalo
To a lady whose name I didn’t get and to nurse Grace at Straub Hospital. I was at Regal Theaters at Windward Mall when I fainted and fell down. A wonderful woman brought me to and nurse Grace came to see if she could help me. I finally had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but I am fine. I really appreciate so very much to have wonderful caring people like that. — Loretta
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Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
