Quack Quack! Duckling rescues reach international fame

Thursday 10 August 2017

Two ducklings who were rescued by four children in the Beauport area have become superstars overnight after their story was picked up by an American website and gathered over 4.5k likes.

Maxi and Wiggerly were rescued on 1 August by a group of four children aged 9 to 11 who were rock climbing around Beauport.

Jess, Thalia, Serafin and Kyle spotted the family of ducks, a mum and her eight babies, in the rocks. When the mum jumped in the water, four of the ducklings followed while the other four got stuck in the rocks. The children managed to get two back in the water but the mum left before the two could be reunited with their family.

The quartet decided to hang around the beach to wait for the mum to come back, but couldn’t locate her. After waiting for a while, they decided to ring the JSPCA’s ambulance so that the ducklings could be picked up and looked after.

Pictured: A note left by the children who found the ducklings.

The children left a heart-warming note and a drawing with the ducklings instructing the JSPCA’s volunteers of the names they had picked for them, Maxi and Wiggerly. The sweet note also included an account of how the rescue went, as well as a series of questions about the little animals and how they were going to be cared for. They signed off their message with thanks to the JSPCA’s team for saving the little babies. 

Now a week on, a spokesperson for the JSPCA has told Express how the little rescues, who were only two days old when they arrived at the animal shelter, are “thriving.” “They are doing very well and growing quickly. They are going to go through different stages of care and as they do, we will put them in bigger areas, including in the water so their waterproof feathers can grow. They will stay with us for a minimum of two months. We have another two ducklings that are a bit older at the shelter so, our plan is to release them in a safe, nice area so they can grow together as a group.”

Pictured: The tiny ducks with a fluffy friend.

The young rescuers were thrilled to hear about the progress made by the young ducklings by the JSPCA’s volunteers. They were also praised for doing the “right thing” and trying to find the mum first. The JSPCA’s spokesperson said: “It is always a bit of a concern when people bring in young ducklings. We sometimes can have up to 50 in the shelter. It was nice of the children to try and reunite the family. It is unfortunate that the mum had gone off before the last two could join her.”

Even if rescuing ducklings found alone in a valley or on the beach, the JSPCA’s spokesperson says it is always best “…to hang around to see if the mum comes back or if the ducklings find her rather than picking them up straight away.” Being in the shelter can cause a lot of stress to ducklings. The JSPCA’s woman explained: “We always worry when we receive very young babies. Sometimes they only last for a short while due to the stress of being handled by humans. It can be quite surreal for them so we try to simulate the kind of environment they would be in in their enclosure. We have fleece blankets so they can feel like being under their mum’s wings and be nice and warm. After a couple of days, they usually start eating and if they are thriving easily you know they are going to do ok.”

Luckily, these ducklings’ story has got a happy ending, one that travelled halfway around the globe.  Based in New York, the Dodo website, which specialises in “emotionally and visually compelling, highly sharable animal-related stories and videos,” picked it up and shared it on its Facebook page, which is followed by over 14 million people. The post has already received over 4.6k likes, with hundreds of people praising the children, and their parents. Some have even written that the story has "restored their faith in humanity" and "renewed their hope in the new generation."