At this very moment, your editor is comfortably numb and is, if everything is going according to plans, again having a snake run through the plumbing in his body’s most important muscle. It thus occurs to him how strange it is that with muscles as run down and faulty as his, people at one time asked him to come speak about and display his marvelous mussels. And some, believe it or not, actually took interest in such a thing. If the reader finds this odd, he or she would not be alone. But the peculiarities don’t stop there. The reader may find further bewilderment after being informed that the editor’s mussels are now in the collection of a regional museum where they are preserved for study by qualified persons with scientific proclivities. All of this show and tell was for just one purpose—to raise appreciation and sentiment for our mussels, so that they might be protected.
Click on the “Freshwater Mussels and Clams” tab at the top of this page to see the editor’s mussels, and many others as well. Then maybe you too will want to flex your muscles for our mussels. They really do need, and deserve, our help.
Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like a really bad poem, so here it is…
FOR THE LOVE OF DUCKS
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
My neighbors are complainin’
I can hear them talk
The mallards eat their garden
Let surprises on their walk
Dung stains on the carpets
They tracked it in the house
It’s from those ducks and not the pets
Can’t blame it on the spouse
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
Tamed with bread and crackers
I gave them as a treat
I soon found maimed dead quackers
Lying in the street
A driver who intended
To miss the hens and drakes
Had their car rear-ended
When they hit the brakes
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
The flock is very wasteful
Each bird a pound a day
Web-foots in a cesspool
Pollute the waterway
There are some kids playing
In that filthy ditch
Soon they’ll be displaying
The rash of Swimmer’s Itch
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
These ducks they do not migrate
They’re here day in, day out
Aquatic life they decimate
No plants, no fish, no trout
Hurry! Hurry! Heed my call
Before it starts to rain
Ten more ducklings took a fall
And are stranded in a drain
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
Have you people lost your minds?
I see you by your fence
These ducks are cute and I am kind
It’s you who’ve lost your sense
Beggars from the handouts
My God what have I done?
Their senseless habits leave no doubt
Their instincts are all gone
I like to feed the duckies
Try it and you’ll see
Aren’t they really lucky?
Relying just on me
Now I know just what to do
Like one would teach a child
I’ll feed the ducks at the zoo
And let the rest live wild
So if you feed the duckies
Beware of the spell
Or you will do the same as me
Loving ducks to death as well
—Ducks Anonymous, LLC
They’re cute, but if you really love waterfowl, then please refrain from feeding them. Hand-fed ducks soon lose their survival instincts. These clueless birds do dumb things like loiter in traffic and, perhaps worst of all, omit migration from their yearly life cycle. Daily plundering by year-round congregations of Canada Geese, Mute Swans, polygamous Mallards (seen here), and domestic waterfowl is decimating native plant and animal populations in waterways, wetlands, ponds, and lakes throughout the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed. For aquatic food chains and fisheries to recover, people must stop feeding (and releasing) these highly-impressionable birds.