Ducklings Rescued From Storm Drain

Kids kept a protective watch going for three days

By KAREN ARAIZA

Updated 8:30 PM EST, Fri, Jul 3, 2009

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A sewer crew rescued four little ducklings trapped in a storm drain Friday, giving neighborhood kids the happy ending they'd hoped for and their parents a little peace and quiet for the first time in three days.

The baby ducks fell into the storm drain somehow on Tuesday. They waddled underground for about 50 feet and settled underneath a storm grate in the parking lot and did what little ducks do when they miss their mother – they quacked.

"I'd be pretty upset, too, if I was stuck down there and my mom was up here!" said Erin Moore, one of the children who lives at the Echelon Glen Apartment in Voorhees, New Jersey, where the ducks were stuck.

And for three days, the mother duck, who could hear but not see her little ones, quacked back.

Children threw bread crumbs and crackers to keep their little friends fed.

The mother duck quacked for three days while babies were stuck.

Ducklings Rescued

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Ducklings Rescued

"It is a sad thing to see this distraught mother duck every time I step out of my apartment," Sharon, one of the residents, said in an email.

"In the morning we hear the mother duck, 'Quack! Quack! Quack! And it was really loud," said Erica Moore who also lives in the complex.

Events like this have a way of consuming the days and the mind of a child. A group of kids kept a protective watch over the duck family, feeding the mother bread and tossing bread and crackers down the grate to keep the little ducks fed too, and to hopefully catch a glimpse of them now and then.

"Only if they hear their mother, that's when they come out! 'Cause then they think it's safe!" said one of the kids, Shivam Patel.
A township crew tried several times to get to the ducklings out but each time, they scurried too far back into the drainpipe.

Then late Friday afternoon, a sewer crew with just the right tools and touch showed up and plucked three ducklings out of the drain and caught the fourth as it tried to make a run for it across the parking lot.

After a quick cleaning the duck family was back together again, putting the kids' worries away, just in time for some real fireworks.