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Article Courtesy of The Orlando
Sentinel
By Rene Stutzman
Published August 14, 2016
Sue Bigsby awoke about 5 a.m. today to the sound of gunfire.
"Pop, pop, pop, pop," she said.
Outside, a man sitting in his pickup truck was picking off Muscovy ducks one at
a time at a lake in the middle of Waterford Lakes, a subdivision east of
Orlando.
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An Orange County deputy —
his gun drawn — put a stop to it, but the man wasn't doing
anything improper, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jane Watrel.
The Waterford Lakes Community Association had hired him, she
said, and shooting Muscovy ducks on private property is legal.
The association had told members that it was paying a trapper to
humanely catch and relocate the the red-faced ducks, residents
said. It had said nothing about shooting them.
That was not supposed to happen, said association general
manager Ken Zook, but the contractor, Jason Levinson, owner of
Animals Beware in Mount Dora, changed strategies on his own.
Zook described it this way: "Apparently this morning the trapper
decided he was having an issue with seven remaining ducks, which
were extremely elusive the last 45 days, and took it upon
himself to euthanize the ducks with a gun."
Levinson killed three, Zook said. Four escaped and were
somewhere in the neighborhood.
A two-man crew in a boat that was working with Levinson picked
up the cadavers, Bigsby said.
Levinson did not return
phone calls. Zook fired him today, he said. The contract was
worth $5,500, Zook said. |
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Muscovy ducklings that earlier were relocated from
Waterford Lakes
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Association officers and volunteers had gone to pains to hire a company that
would humanely relocate the ducks, said resident Stephanie Chandrasekaran.
Levinson had done that — until today, Zook said.
The trapper had captured 149 ducks and taken them to a farm in Clermont, Zook
said. Left behind were the seven renegades.
Collectively, the invasive bird species had become a nuisance earlier this
summer, residents said, when their number spiraled out of control, and they were
befowling a gazebo and other recreation areas.
Bigsby, 63, confronted Levinson shortly after 5 a.m., she said. It was still
dark outside, she said, when she knocked on the truck's window.
"I asked what the hell he was doing. He said he was shooting ducks. … 'I'm doing
my job. … I'm just finishing up.'"
She said, "It doesn't seem like a very sane way to deal with things, and it
doesn't seem like a very safe way." |
