Ducknapping At Washtenaw CC – 1969

Ducknapping At Washtenaw CC – 1969

Washtenaw Golf Club’s ponds provide a home to an impressive variety of waterfowl, including herons, geese, a wide variety of ducks and the occasional cormorant. (Club link: book at tee time online)

In 1969, one of Washtenaw’s birds was the victim of a duck-napping that made the wires with the Associated Press.

According to the story, a woman stopped her car near the club and seized a duck on one of Washtenaw Country Club’s ponds.

Tracing the duck-napper through her license plate, Washtenaw County sheriffs found that she had “borrowed” the duck to mate it with her pet drake.

The woman claimed she intended to return the duck after the ducklings were born.

It was therefore a crime of passion. Of sorts.

There is no indication of consequences for the duck-napper.

I will note, however, it is possible that she ran a-fowl (pun intended) of the Migratory Bird Act of 1918, which prohibits the removal of migratory birds or their parts from a property. Thus, she could have committed a Federal crime.

I hope she got off with a warning from Deputies.

Here’s the whole bird-brained story from the October 16, 1969 Detroit Free Press:

Sex Rears Its Head In State Duck-Napping

Ypsilanti (AP) – Washtenaw County sheriff’s deputies quickly solved a ducknapping reported Tuesday by the Wastheanw Country Club. The motive, of all things, turned out to have been sex.

The cub complained a woman had stopped her car and grabbed a duck off its pond. The car was traced through its license number to a women owner in a nearby apartment complex.

She explained, deputies said, she didn’t steal the cuck, “just borrowed it for a while” to mate it with her drake. It was also her plan, she said, to return the duck after the ducklings were born.

Deputies nipped the drake-duck romance, netting the club’s duck in the women’s pen and returning it to the club.

Detroit Free Press, Oct. 16, 1969, via the Associated Press

I quite enjoy watching the birds at Washtenaw Golf Club. Here are a few of my favorite photos: