Woman nurses sick, day-old duck back to health. Cops seize it and say it’s “wildlife”, not “pets”:

“It’s a situation that we run across every year,” state Fish and Wildlife Capt. Bill Hebner said. “People find sick or injured wildlife they believe to be orphaned and they take it into captivity and make pets out of them.

“The agency does not support that concept. We believe wildlife is wildlife and pets are pets and there’s a strong distinction between the two.”

[...]

Erdmann said she got Gooey, now 11 weeks old, from a friend after the then-day-old duckling had been injured by a crow.

She said he was “not a wild duck” but a domestic mallard.

She got a book on raising ducks, kept him under heat lamps, fed him chicken food and vitamin supplements, bought him custom-made duck diapers and brought him to work every day.

“It’s a very spoiled little duck,” said Ross B. Hansen, owner of Northwest Territorial Mint in this south Seattle suburb.

Last Friday, two state Fish and Wildlife agents showed up at Northwest Territorial Mint asking for Erdmann, who’s a manager at the company.

Kristin Donovan, assistant to the company president, said she heard “a very loud, very booming, very aggressive-type voice.”

“He said, ‘Give me the duck.’ I heard a pause, then, ‘If you don’t give me the duck, I’m going to arrest you.’”

When Erdmann refused to hand Gooey over, she said the officers became more stern. One of them showed her his handcuffs. As she cradled Gooey in her arms, the other one lunged at her and grabbed the duck, striking Erdmann on the chest, she said.

[...]

Erdmann and her colleagues say they’re stunned by how ridiculous it all seems.

“There are a million ducks in Washington,” Hansen said. “It’s not like this is an endangered duck.”

So the real lesson here is don’t help sick things, right? Save the wildlife of Washington State by letting it die!

It’s a duck! It’s not even being fattened up for foie gras. Don’t they have anything better to worry about in Washington than this?

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