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Friday, September 4, 2020

Three Ducks on Three Planes

 “I’m leavin’ on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again. Oh babe, I hate to go.”

 -          John Denver, Leaving On a Jet Plane

Years ago, back when I was very new at shipping animals, we had a clutch of ducklings hatch out at our zoo.  I was very excited, beyond the usual level of excitement surrounding baby animals, because these ducks belonged to a species that was fairly uncommon in zoos, so it was a nice accomplishment for us.  As the ducks grew and matured, I found homes for them at three different facilities around the country.  By luck, I was able to book flights for them all on the same day, though on different airlines.


I prepared the ducks for travel, packing each one in an identical crate.  The flights were early in the morning, and I got to the airport at about 4 AM.  That’s when things got difficult.

All three airlines initially rejected the ducks and refused to ship them.  All three cited a different reason.

The first airline refused because they said that the crate wasn’t adequately covered.  The wanted all open sides and the front to be covered with something  - one employee told me that it was to keep the animal calm, the other told me it was so baggage handlers wouldn’t get bitten… by a half-pound duck.  Frantically, I drove around until I found a Wal-Mart that was open at 4AM.  I ran in and bought some scissors, a bag of zip-ties, and a roll of screen-door material, then ran back out to the car.  I carefully cut out screen and put it over all of the exposed areas, fixing it in place with zip-ties.  It was flimsy and really didn’t do much to cover the crate, but the airline employees accepted it.  The duck was put on its plane.

The second airline refused because the duck didn’t have food with it (neither did the first duck, but that airline never mentioned it as a problem).  I argued that it was a two-hour direct flight, no layover.  The duck wouldn’t eat in that time out of stress from travel.  An affixed food dish was one more thing that it would bang into if it got frightened.  Eventually, they relented, as long as I signed a statement saying that it was okay that it didn’t have food and that I was sure it would be alright.  The duck was put on its plane.

The third airline refused because the duck was too old.  Granted, it wasn’t even sexually mature yet, but their regulations said that it had to be under a week old to ship.  I was baffled.  If I’d started the transaction the process on the day that the duck hatched, I couldn’t have gotten it ready to ship in less than a week.  They were adamant – ducks older than one week couldn’t fly… never mind the other two ducks I just shipped that morning.  I told them that I had personally picked up several adult ducks of various species from this same airport before.  They didn’t care.  Suddenly, I decided that the hang up was the word “duck.”  I redid the paperwork, calling the bird a "teal".  The duck  teal was put on its plane.

(Later, I found out that this was a rule that was meant for domestic waterfowl being shipped.  I’ve since learned that 99% of airline animal transport problems can be solved simply by saying “This is a zoo-to-zoo transport.”)

As I drove back to the zoo in the pre-dawn darkness, the car thankfully empty of ducks, I let out a huge sigh of relief.  Next time, I vowed, would be smoother.



And, in a sense, it was.  I continue to have periodic problems, but each shipment I’ve done, I’ve learned more about the rules and regulations and gotten better.  Sometimes I’ve needed to explain the rules to the airline employees, many of whom have seldom dealt with an animal shipment other than a dog or cat, and I’ve been in a position to be the expert – which certainly felt odd at the time.

A few years later, I visited one of my former ducks at his new home.  It was a beautiful habitat, and my awkward little duckling had matured into a handsome boy with full adult plumage.  He had a pretty female by his side, and the keepers were hopeful of ducklings in the future.  As stressful as transfers can be (both on the animals and the transporters), they can also be very satisfying and lead to happy endings. 

If only there had been some way to let that duck know how close he came to missing his plane.

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