Euros gunning for amorous American duck

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Did you hear the one about the love-struck duck whose ardor for forbidden flesh has caused the British government to put a price on his head?

And wouldn't you know he's an American? The saga evokes parallels with World War II, when hordes of GIs prepared to invade the continent. The only problem with the Americans, it was said then, was that they were "oversexed, overpaid, and over here."

David Cox, an independent UK television producer, told the tale of the ruddy duck in the June 30 issue of the New Statesman. The story crossed the pond in the November issue of Ode, an English-language newsmagazine founded in 1995 by Dutch journalist Jurriaan Kamp. Ode launched its American edition in October.

By most accounts, the small, chunky diving duck - with its natty russet plumage and powder-blue bill -- was introduced to the UK in the late 1940s by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge. The purpose, in the words of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, was "to enhance captive wildfowl collections." But they busted out in 1952, and today some 4,000 swim and dive in the fresh waters of England and southern Scotland.

The plucky little ducks, with their jaunty pointed tails, "came to Britain neither as asylum-seekers nor as economic migrants, and make no demands on our social services," Cox wrote. "Instead, they were abducted from their transatlantic haunts to be paraded in a West Country zoo, from which ignominious fate they had the spunk to liberate themselves."

What perfidy doomed the ducks? "On flyaway breaks to Spain, ruddies, like their human counterparts, are apt to indulge in holiday romances." The object of their affections is the almost identical white-headed duck, which is nevertheless considered a separate species, and an extremely endangered one.

With astounding ignorance of science, some hold that hybridization "threatens biodiversity." Others murmur darkly about "genetic impurity."

Cox points out that the Spanish themselves put the whiteheads at the brink of extinction by shooting them in large numbers and draining their marshy haunts. Even so, "the prospect of UK ducks shagging (Spanish) ducks to extinction affronted national machismo. Satisfaction was demanded."

"Spanish whiteheaded duck enthusiast Jose Antonio Torres Esquivia has reportedly spent up to $250,000 a year since 1984 to find and kill a total of 122 ruddy ducks plus 58 hybrids," said the October issue of Animal People News. "British officials persuaded by his example purged 2,651 ruddy ducks in 1993, 1994, and 1999, before instituting the current scheme to eradicate ruddy ducks from Europe."

That the rest of the European Union has piled on the ruddy may have something to do with the fact that he is a ruddy Yank. The Blair government has caved. "All are to be hunted down by marksmen armed with shotguns and powerboats at a cost to the taxpayer of 1,000 pounds ($1,700) per duck," Cox wrote.

"Opponents have observed that it would be cheaper to fly each duck in Virgin (Atlantic Airways) business class to New York," wrote David Sharrock in the Times of London. But this puts us ahead of our story.

"Should we even be trying to impose racial purity on other species just as we are coming to accept miscegenation in our own?" Cox asked. In fact, the ruddies may be giving the white-heads a much-needed genetic boost.

"Perhaps ... the white-heads, in their wisdom, have been choosing ruddy over white-headed mates, just as our grandmothers favored brash GIs over the weedy local males. What do we know?"

But wait. In fact, the racial purity for which the ruddies are to be extirpated was compromised long ago. Most of the Spanish ducks, it turns out, are really Pakistani. David Sharrock let the feathers fly in the July 19 editions of the Times.

Sharrock got Tom Gullick, "the world's greatest living birdwatcher," to reveal his part in introducing the southwest Asian ducks to Iberia more than 20 years ago. Gullick, an Englishman living in La Mancha, divulged his undercover role because of his anger at what he called "this massacre."

In the late 1970s Gullick counted just 23 whiteheaded ducks, one-quarter of the official Spanish estimate, at a lake south of Cordoba. Because the birds were still being hunted, he figured that in one more winter they would be wiped out.

Gullick and his collaborators got some eggs from Pakistan and hatched out 16 ducklings, which were introduced into the Donana National Park. Now about 3,000 whiteheads thrive, some in areas where they had been previously unseen.

None of this has slowed the efforts of Senor Torres, who directs the movements of four killer teams across Spain.

"When someone detects a strange duck, they call me," Torres told Sharrock. ... "Even though some people in Britain think so, we are not savages. We employ elite riflemen. Last month I saw for the first time one being shot, and it was very disagreeable. But there is no other way."

Andrew Tyler, director of the UK advocacy group Animal Aid, called the situation "stomach-churning."

"Talk about genetic purity is racist," he told the Times. "This is simply what happens in nature; it's a natural survival mechanism. The scheme is hugely unpopular (in Britain), and when wildlife preservation groups and landowners refuse to cooperate, you are going to see government killing teams forcing themselves onto land."

Gullick is strongly opposed to the extirpation plan, calling it unnecessary, unworkable, and "a scandalous waste of conservation money."

He believes that, if anything, competition from the ruddy duck in Spain has encouraged the whitehead to breed to its present flourishing numbers.

Animal Aid's efforts to save the ruddy (including the sale of a "Ruddy Justice" T-shirt) can be seen at animalaid.org.uk/campaign/wildlife/ruddyduck.htm.