Over-sexed and over here: ruddy duck wins a reprieve

Over-sexed and over here: ruddy duck wins a reprieve
By Ian Herbert
Published: 07 April 2007
Independent UK

For a town whose avian interests have been traditionally limited to pigeons, Wigan is an unlikely place to take to heart the survival of a noisy, over-sexed bird from North America.

But the ruddy duck, a creature whose predilection for mating with other species currently makes it the focus of a UK-wide cull, has found salvation here.

The future looked bleak a few months ago for the colony of more than 100 ruddy ducks, which was living on marshland known as the Wigan Flashes. The council agreed to kill the ducks, in keeping with a request to Britain from Spain, which says the ruddy's proclivity for mating with its indigenous white headed duck threatens that species.

The Government's stance was backed by the RSPB, to the anger of some members. The RSPB said the future of the white-headed duck was more important than that of Britain's ruddy, which was introduced from North America in the 1940s as a captive species by the late conservationist Sir Peter Scott, and later escaped.

But while councils across the nation have fallen in line with an £8.5m eradication programme, which has so far brought numbers of the duck down from 6,000 to an estimated 4,500, Wigan has been forced to think again after a campaign to save the flock unearthed evidence that the threat they pose may not be all that it seems.

Aided by the ornithologist Tom Gullick and the county bird recorder for Greater Manchester, Judith Smith, the campaigners argued that ruddy ducks were not migrating south in large numbers. "Statistics show only four ruddy ducks were found last year in Spain," said Ms Smith. The campaigners also say the white-headed duck population in Spain has recovered substantially from a reported 22 in 1977 to 5,000.

Peter Franzen, a councillor, took this research back to the council, whose members have voted to delay the cull at least until September, when the breeding season is completed.