A genuine box of fluffies…
A genuine box of fluffies…
The fugitive took flight from the car park of The Zone Shopping Centre, Pukekohe. Description: about 25cm tall, feathered, probably not dangerous.
Constables Sophie Gannon and Muhamad Ismail were on patrol around the shopping area this week when they were flagged down by members of the public.
A mother duck and her ducklings were trapped in a drain and a rescue was under way. The mother was scooped out - but before seeing her brood rescued she took fright and flew away, leaving Sophie and Mohamad babysitting 13 cold ducklings.
“I don’t know who the people were who rescued them but they looked like drain maintenance people,” says Sophie.
“We sat in the car and waited to see if the mother would come back. We thought all the people being there might have scared her away, but she didn’t come back after everyone dispersed.”
Rather than leave the ducklings motherless in the cold, on the advice of the SPCA they took them back to Pukekohe Police Station, from where the SPCA collected them and transferred them to a nearby bird rescue centre.
Sophie, who joined Police last year, says the rescue was another chapter in a job which throws up something different every day.
“I think the whole station was pretty excited about having a box of ducklings,” she says.