Category Archives: Parks
Ducklings and Goslings: A Message from Judy McClaver
Spring is here and it’s baby season for wildlife. This includes waterfowl. Ducks and geese have made their nests and are hatching their eggs. They nest under shrubs, in high grass, up in trees, in your backyards, in parks, and along waterways. Not all nests are next to water. They can be blocks away.
If you see a mother duck with her ducklings crossing a street, she is headed to water. Help her by protecting her from car traffic but don’t chase her. She knows where she is going and can only go the speed of her babies. If the ducklings are in your pool, put a ramp in for the babies to get out or raise the water level way up to the lip of the pool. They have no protection other than their moms from cold and wet, though they can swim.
Please keep your dogs on leash when out and about to prevent them disturbing or injuring the nests or babies. If orphaned babies are found, please deliver to your local wildlife rehab organization (see below). It is illegal to keep wildlife more than two days and likely they will not survive without proper feed and care. Handling them will also cause enough stress to kill them. Gathering babies up or removing them from their parents and releasing them into a pond, canal, or river is a death sentence. Ducklings and goslings need parental protection. Wildlife are protected by Federal and State laws and there are fines for harassing or disturbing wildlife.
These organizations rehabilitate orphaned wildlife:
Gold Country Wildlife – https://goldcountrywildliferescue.org/wildlife-emergency/Sierra Wildlife – http://www.sierrawildliferescue.org/so-you-found-a/
Wildlife Care Assoc – https://wildlifecareassociation.com/found-animal/
Do not feed bread, chips or crackers to waterfowl anywhere (adults or babies).
Here are some tips to keep the feeding fun and the waterfowl healthy:
- Don’t overfeed. Take a small bag of treats.
- Explain to the kids that the ducks are on a special diet to help them stay healthy.
- Feed dark, leafy greens (not iceberg lettuce), some corn, carrots, and peas for extra treats.
- Western Feed carries fowl scratch and corn. This commercial food is nutritionally designed for birds. Pellets and crumble can be found at other stores.
- You can make small feed balls with brown rice, hardboiled eggs and greens.
- Avoid feeding goslings or ducklings.
Misfeeding waterfowl has heartbreaking consequences. Wings of baby fowl can become deformed from a processed-carbohydrate diet. The unusual deformity called ‘angel wing’ can be a symptom. Adults can also become sick if the bread gets stuck in their crops.
ESP Calls on City to Install Split Sewer System Not the Vault
East Sacramento Preservation Neighborhood Association opposes the city’s proposed water vault solution for flooding in McKinley Park and calls on the City of Sacramento to install split sewer systems throughout the city. A modern, growing city like Sacramento must do this. We are one of only three cities on the west coast that has not up dated its system. Even significantly older municipalities in the north east United States are undertaking this task.
Council Member Harris and the city are pushing to excavate a 25 to 30 feet deep sewer/water tank to be placed in 3.2 acres of McKinley Park. The project will take about three years and will disrupt traffic, quality of life, and safety of neighbors. Not to mention the impact on recreational users. Joggers, picnicking families, strolling moms and their infants, and many walkers from throughout Sacramento will be displaced. McKinley Park is the most heavily used and greatly loved park in the city.
The vault would hold the overflow runoff and sewage on rainy days, so some streets don’t flood, but its capacity during major storms is not proven. Sacramento needs updated, split sewer systems in all the neighborhoods throughout the city.
In split sewer systems, the waste flows from household plumbing pipes to a dedicated sewer line that connects to the water treatment plant. At the plant the waste is cleaned out and the water is ready to be processed into potable water. The plant discharges any excess, sewage-free water, into the river. The key to this design is the separate, dedicated pipe that takes sewage to treatment plants. The storm drains connect to a separate pipe that carries rainwater and runoff to the river. Unfortunately, our East Sacramento and other older neighborhoods, sprinkled throughout the city, rely on a very old combined system.,
Historic McKinley Park is the most highly used neighborhood park in Sacramento. Thousands and thousands of people from throughout the city recreate, marry, eat, play and relax on its green lawns. The baseball field (slated for destruction) is one of the few left in East Sacramento. The building of the vault is a huge disruption and not necessary. It’s a patch.
Do the right thing. Replace the system to a split system, over time. Spread out the construction and the cost, like the water meter project, and bring our city into the modern age, like the rest of the country.
Do the right thing.
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