Dan's Feathursday Feature: Ruddy Duck

The road to ecological hell is paved with good intentions. History is littered with examples of well-meaning humans purposely introducing an organism from one continent or ecosystem into another, with the explicit goal of improving the host ecosystem. More often than not, the actions led to consequences never intended or even imagined by those doing the transplanting.

Sometimes the introduction of a foreign species was driven by whim and fancy. In 1890 a bird-loving Shakespeare fanatic decided he wanted to bring to the US every bird mentioned in the works of the bard. One of those was the European Starling. They came. They saw. They conquered. The European Starling is now an uncontrollable pest in North America, causing great harm to crops as well as to many native species of birds by depleting their food sources and usurping their nesting sites.

Often the goal was to eradicate what we perceived as a pest by introducing a new creature to attack that pest. In 1872, mongoose were released in Hawaii to kill off the rats that were ravaging the island’s burgeoning sugar cane industry. Unfortunately, not a single mongoose was willing to work the night shift, when rats are active. So the rats kept eating the sugar cane at night, while during the day the mongoose proceeded to decimate Hawaii’s ground-nesting bird population.

On occasion it was first one goal and then the other. In New Zealand, rabbits and hares were introduced because they were cute and they tasted good. When those bunnies multiplied like rabbits, and became a pest, stoats and other rabbit eaters were introduced to control them. It didn’t work. Now both rabbits and stoats are thriving, while native bird populations are drastically reduced.

There are countless more examples of human tinkering with ecosystems, but possibly the most famous of all dates to the fifth century, when Maewyn Succat was pirated to Ireland to rid the Emerald Isle of its pesty snakes. Tradition tells us it was a stunning success, and Ireland was indeed snake-less after Maewyn’s intervention. Dare I mention the inconvenient fact that there were no snakes even before his arrival? Well, as a dear Irish friend would have said: “Oh cop on, Danny boy, ye must be bleedin’ gargled. You’ll ruin a good story gettin’ all factual on me. That’s beside the point. The point is, my friend, after dear Paddy went to his heavenly reward, there were no snakes. Can ye deny that’s a grand thing?”

No, I cannot. (I’ve never won an argument with an Irishman, so I learned to “cop on” quickly.) However, there is no denying the global and long-lasting repercussions of St. Patrick. Irish pubs have sprung up in every corner of the world, and every year on or about March 17, normally calm and gentle people of every stripe are smitten with an inexplicable and apparently uncontrollable urge that can only be sated by dressing in funny green costumes and parading through the streets, before ending up in a pub to sip green beer and alternately laugh and cry to tender renditions of Danny Boy and Seven Old Ladies.

As repercussions go, there are worse.

The Ruddy Duck is a bird of the Americas. Its introduction into Europe falls into the whim and fancy category of species transplant. In the 1930s and 1940s, British conservationists and nature enthusiasts released mating pairs of Ruddy Ducks in various wetland preserves in southwest England and Wales. There does not seem to have been any careful study of the potential impact of this new species on the marshes of the British Isles, nor any dire need driving the duck’s introduction except the feeling that no British marsh should be without this striking duck.

There is no denying the Ruddy Duck is an attractive duck. As is often the case with waterfowl, the female is a non-descript gray-brown in color, but the male in breeding plumage is a handsome bird, in a wacky sort of way. Its deep cinnamon colored body and brown neck transition to a dark cap accented by white cheeks and a bright blue bill. It always strikes me as what a duck would look like if it wore an Irish tweed cap with an extra-long visor. When floating, it often holds its tail up stiffly at a forty-five degree angle, giving it a cocky aura. Whenever I hear a “duck walks into a bar” joke, this is the duck I picture sidling in through the swinging doors.

Things went swimmingly for the Ruddy Ducks in their new home—too swimmingly. In little more than a decade, some had escaped the confines of the preserves where they were first kept, and by 1952 there were pairs breeding in the wild. By the year 2000, in the UK alone the Ruddy Duck population was estimated to be 6,000 birds. They were first recorded in Spain in 1983, and as many as 1,500 have been reported in 21 countries throughout Europe and North Africa.

Meanwhile, the White-headed Duck, a very similar looking, close relative of the Ruddy Duck, was not faring so well. The White-headed Duck is native to Europe, with the continent’s only resident population limited to Spain. By 1977 habitat loss and hunting had pushed the Spanish population of White-headed Ducks to the brink of extirpation. Only 22 birds remained, in one small lagoon in the Cordoba region. A well-coordinated Species Action Plan strictly enforced the prohibition of hunting and conducted programs to eradicate invasive species of fish and plants that were destroying the native wetlands. The efforts proved very successful, helping the White-headed Duck gradually recover to 400 birds by 1988.

But then came cousin Ruddy Duck. We already know that the Ruddy Ducks proved very good at making more Ruddy Ducks. But the Ruddy Duck drakes did not stop there. They mated enthusiastically with White-headed Ducks, too, creating fertile hybrids that threatened to overwhelm the native White-headed Duck population. In response, a Ruddy Duck eradication program was begun in the UK, home of the largest population of that invasive bird. By 1983 the UK population was reduced to about 500 birds (from 6,000 birds in 2000), and by 2021 there are reportedly less than two dozen Ruddy Ducks left in the UK.

Those drastic and continuing actions allowed the White-headed Duck to hold its own and continue to increase. By 2021 Spain was home to a healthy population of 2,500 birds.

But it is a never-ending struggle—a see-saw of action and reaction—as we work to offset the repercussions of our human hubris. When we try to play God, there is no deus ex machina, like a St. Patrick, to march in and eradicate the vipers of our misdeeds. We have to clean up our own messes.

Back in North America, the Ruddy Duck is doing just fine. Next time you see one, do me a favor. Doff your cap and offer the bird an apology for the harm done to its reputation by our misdeeds. It won’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but you will have taken one small step toward developing a conservation mindset.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and photography of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.