Whether it’s albino squirrels frolicking on the Oval or cows running loose, Ohio State has had its fair share of odd animal situations. One brood recently missing from campus is the multi-colored ducks of Mirror Lake.
Anyone who has walked past Mirror Lake in the spring has seen these ducks swimming with their offspring, quacking and waddling around in search of crumbs from Mirror Lake Creamery and Grill subs. But this spring, the ducks are missing in action.
Last August, Mirror Lake was drained to clean and refill the water. Before that happened, OSU hired professionals from the Wildlife Control Company to remove the feathered inhabitants from the pond and transfer them to nearby Fred Beekman Park. The cost to move the ducks to the park, located on the southwest corner of Lane Avenue and Kenny Road, was $1,500.
As the dog days of summer began to fade away and winter set in, the ducks, whose genetic lineage is so muddled that they are incapable of flying to warmer areas, were in need of assistance.
Amy Murray, assistant director of Media Relations, said OSU was in the midst of preparing to move the ducks to a safer place when some concerned citizens called up a local television station.
After a few stories aired about the aviation-impaired creatures, the Ohio Wildlife Center snatched up the Buckeye-raised ducks.
Before the ducks’ removal, one of the proposed suggestions citizens gave for protecting the ducks included building straw huts on the banks of Beekman’s pond as a haven from winter weather and predators.
“OSU was going to move them to a farm but they (Ohio Wildlife Center) took them, and that’s where they are now,” Murray said.
OSU never introduces animals to Mirror Lake, Murray said, but people sometimes drop off pet ducklings into the pond once the novelty of caring for them wears off.
Richard Slemons, a professor at OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine in the department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, said Mirror Lake’s former residents are a genetic mixture of domestic and wild ducks, which can attest to their physical disabilities and strange color combinations.
“I’m guessing people have put pet ducks there, and they crossed with wild ducks,” Slemons said. “Over time, they have probably become inbred, as well, if new ones (ducks) were not introduced.”
Slemons also said that ducks are not particular fans of geese and are not as faithful to their breeding grounds. If they find a more suitable atmosphere to live in, they won’t come back to their original home — especially if, when Mirror Lake freezes, they cannot successfully guard themselves from predators.
Although the original feathered friends of Mirror Lake are no longer waddling about campus and laying their genetically mixed eggs around the pond, there is a new clan of Mallard ducks hanging around, ready to repopulate Mirror Lake.
