As a highway patrol officer, Nyanne Pollard is mostly unflappable. But any future ‘fowl play’ by vehicles on a notorious route for paradise ducks which roam in Monaco could ruffle her feathers.
Nelson Weekly reported at the end of 2024 that Monaco resident Jamie Lee Jarvie had installed homemade courtesy signs at sections between Songer St and Point Rd to advise drivers to decelerate so the local paradise ducks didn’t get “squished”.
Some of the flock had already succumbed on the road before the signs went up, and after the Nelson Weekly’s first article about Jamie’s quest was published, it was reported that the drake had died in a suspected vehicle strike.
Paradise ducks fear not, Nyanne is on the case to prevent decimation this year with homemade signs on the Songer St overbridge’s left side, and the Hoult Cres and Point Rd intersection.
Jamie appreciates her “kind soul” successor. A “strong believer in protecting wildlife”, Nyanne says the mantra from police to slow down still applies to this native species.
“The only reason for the story is just to get people to slow down and be mindful… they are vulnerable because they have to compete with cars, trucks and pedestrians,” she says.
“I don’t think anyone deliberately wants to run them over, and I know that a lot of people were very pissed off and distressed last year when the father got run over, because there’s really no need.
“We all have families that we all want to get safely home, and this little duck family is no different.”
Nyanne says she first spotted around nine paradise ducklings and their parents on 1 October at residential streets off Songer St, and herded them into Broadgreen Gardens and Birchwood School’s grounds to get them out of harm’s way, but only four ducklings remain.
“Since then, I’ve been checking on them every day, and they’ve been down by The Honest Lawyer area,” she says.
