A goose watches over a group of goslings on the banks of the Fox River in Appleton. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Springtime in Wisconsin means baby goslings and ducklings become part of the landscape.
This change of season is also when calls to help injured, abandoned and trapped wildlife increases.
“The ducks will come in, they’ll hatch and then when a baby duckling hatches, the mother will walk it to water. Usually, that’s not a problem. However, when the ducks hatch in an urban environment, we have manmade hazards,” said Matt Fillebrown, the lead community service officer/humane officer with the City of Appleton.
Those hazards are sewer grates — something mama ducks have no issue navigating. But their offspring is not so lucky.
“She’ll walk across the sewer grate and then all the baby ducklings will follow the mom and go on in,” Fillebrown said.
So far this year, community service officers with the Appleton Police Department have rescued 103 ducklings from city sewers. Last year, they helped to reunite 136 babies with their mom.
“It’s important to the police department. It’s important to the citizens of Appleton that they know there is resources out there that can take care of the animals in the city of Appleton, and do the humane thing and help them get out of sewer grate and then relocate them to nature,” said Fillebrown.
It’s a job the CSOs are prepared for and take seriously.
“We’ve got special tools that we use to get the sewer grates off, which are really heavy. We’ll drag those on off and then we’ll usually have two CSOs. One will reach into the sewer grate and then give the other CSO the ducklings and put them in a one gallon barrel, is what we’ll do,” Fillebrown added.
For the most part, the CSOs have no trouble reuniting the babies with their mom, or perhaps another flock. In some cases, they’ll take them to the wildlife sanctuary.
“Everybody wants to hold a cute little duckling, but I think my favorite moment is when you actually get them in the water and the mother swims and they all just follow suit. It’s a nice thing we get to do for the community,” Fillebrown said.
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