Duckling Defenders Decry Nature’s Cruelty

Baby ducks, born in recent weeks at Constitution Gardens on the Mall, never survived their first swim because predators from the sky and the lake snatched the tiny creatures as fast as they put their webbed feet in the water.

A similar fate has befallen nearly every duckling born at Constitution Gardens in the last five years--a stark illustration of nature’s food chain, according to the National Park Service.

Since mid-March, more than 90 baby ducks have become snacks for the bass and catfish in the 7 1/2-acre lake, as well as for the herons drawn to the area because of the fish. But the duck community is thriving at the nearby and fish-free Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

“As long as there’s not a human cause for the problem, we try to let nature take its course,” said Stephen Lorenzetti, chief of the Division of Resource Management at National Capital Parks Central. “You have some people who want to save the wildlife at all costs, and that would be nice, but part of the goal is to keep the area as natural as we can.”

The ducklings rarely live more than 24 hours on the man-made lake just east of the Vietnam Memorial. At least 30 more will hatch during the summer. None is expected to survive.

Frequent visitor Doug Levine has tried to persuade the park service to move the ducks to the safer Reflecting Pool. But because the gardens are federally protected, messing with Mother Nature is not allowed.

“There are about seven or eight other broods, and they’ll get eaten just like the rest of them,” said Levine, a broadcaster at Voice of America. “It would be nice to think that [moving them] would be a solution every time they’re hatched. . . . I think the park service needs to deal with a problem that they don’t see as a problem.”

Constitution Gardens was created in 1976 as a living memorial to the U.S. Constitution. The lake was stocked with fish for city dwellers to catch and release.

Although ducklings live at the Reflecting Pool, the absence of baby ducks at Constitution Gardens is obvious. “Anybody who has walked by more than two or three times will notice there are ducks with no babies,” said Levine, who complains that herons are “flying in and taking over” and “upsetting the balance” of the gardens.

“Another 100 ducks [eaten] this year, 100 last, that adds up,” he said.

Ted Woynicz, a park service volunteer who has monitored the situation at Constitution Gardens for five years, is an advocate for the ducks. Thirty are permanent residents of the gardens, said Woynicz, who has names for most of them.

Astrid, who used to nest at the gardens, just hatched a brood at the Reflecting Pool, he said. Eleven of her 13 ducklings are still alive.

Two broods born at Constitution Gardens one recent Friday were gone by Saturday. And several weeks earlier, Levine said, he saw a black-feathered hybrid taking her ducklings out for a swim. The next day, they were gone.

Woynicz, a waterfowl specialist, said the typical duck doesn’t have the “brainpower” to make the connection between the fish and herons at the lake and their absence at the Reflecting Pool.

The park service lays most of the blame for duck fatalities on the catfish and bass.

“No one wants to believe what a fish can do to one of those ducklings,” Lorenzetti said.