A Magnolia home inspector made an unusual find recently — a mummified duck in a fireplace. Not only that, the duck had a band around its leg.
Joe Cornacchione found the duck on Brock Road, Tylertown, on May 20.
“There were some eggs down there and it was a wood duck,” he said.
The metal band had a phone number and website imprinted on it. Cornacchione got no response on the phone so went to the website, filled out a form and submitted it.
This week he received a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. Geological Survey and Canadian Wildlife Service.
According to the certificate, the duck was hatched in 2019 near Stoney Point in Washington Parish, La., and banded by Larry Reynolds of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
“They apparently tag them to try to monitor the migrations of the birds,” Cornacchione said.
“I still have the mummified body. It may have tried to make a nest in the chimney and died or something,” he said.
“I just filled out the form that they had online and sent it in. I had no idea I would get a certificate.”
According to an article on the Ducks Unlimited website, “One of the primary motivations for banding ducks was to identify the wintering areas and migration routes used by ducks. ... Band recovery data also contain considerable information about waterfowl populations and hunter behavior.
“Using these data, and data from reward band studies (studies where birds are double-banded and a monetary reward is offered for reporting the band), researchers can estimate age-, sex-, and species-specific survival probability, harvest rate, crippling loss, derivation of harvest, recovery rate and band reporting rate. All of these parameters help wildlife professionals set seasons and bag limits more effectively.”
— ensuring healthy duck populations for the future.
