There are many ponds throughout the cities of Farmington, Centerville, and Bountiful. One major thing they all have in common is a large number of geese and ducks waddling or swimming around. But some of those feathery friends, mainly the geese, are not meant to be there. They were released by people who either couldn’t take care of them anymore or – in the more unfortunate cases, did not care for them anymore as pets and believed that they would be better suited for the ponds. 

But, there is a group in Davis County that is trying to teach people about how they can help these ducks and educate them on what happens when visitors of the various ponds leave domesticated ducks behind.

“So in October 2022, I started the Utah Dumped Ducks Duck Network group,” Marisa Loertscher, the creator said.  “And what it essentially is, is just a Facebook group. But I had been fostering ducks. I’d started fostering ducks for the nonprofit, Wasatch Wanderers, and noticing that there’s just dumped domestic ducks all over Utah. Especially in Davis County. Then learning about the difference between dumped domestic ducks and wild ducks and seeing that they need help to survive through the winter.” 

Just a few people can't take care of all of Utah, she said. “So I started the Utah Dump Ducks Network group on Facebook, and essentially it’s just community members coming together, offering to go out daily or whenever they can during the winter. And we just schedule to feed the dumped pets, ducks, and geese at the ponds in Utah in the winter.” 

The Utah Dumped Ducks Duck Network has undergone research and found out a few facts that many people don’t know and some information that would be helpful for park and pond goers to keep these domesticated ducks safe and out of the ponds.

“After talking with several people and doing a bit of research it was found out that it is actually illegal to dump ducks, most people aren’t aware of this law though,” Lorri Blanc a member of the Utah Dumped Ducks Duck Network said. “Causing them to inadvertently dump their domesticated ducks without realizing it. Another little-known fact is that domesticated ducks aren’t able to survive as well as wild ducks. They don’t have the survival instincts nor the ability to fly north for the winter.” 

“One of the sad things is that the domestic ducks, have to fight for their food in the winter, too,”  Chelsea Condi, another member of the Network said. “Against the wild ducks mainly, because there are so many wild ducks, and they can get up and fly and they go away and eat and come back. But the domestic ducks can’t do that.” 

There seems to be a lot of information that people can learn about in order to limit the number of domesticated ducks that get dumped into the local ponds. If just one duck can be saved each day or once a week, many of these feathery friends have better chances at long healthy lives. A few other ways people can help solve this issue is by not feeding the ducks things such as bread or most human foods, picking up trash and random fishing hooks and fishing lines that end up floating in the waters, and finally learning more about domesticated ducks as a whole so they can spot the difference between wild ones and domesticated. λ