My Kids and I Witnessed Murder in Nature

My kids and I had the most traumatic experience yesterday and I just can't get it out of my mind. It started with a fun little trip to the park and ended with murder. Yes, murder. 

Yesterday afternoon I took my two kids over to Settler's Park in Meridian. We played a little ball and then headed over to see the ducks, which is one of our favorite things to do. We've really had fun lately seeing all the new baby ducklings with their parents, but this experience did not end well.

As we walked around the pond my daughter said "Look Mom, that duck has a fish in its mouth." As we got closer we realized it was not a fish, it was a baby duckling that the female duck was flipping around in the water. The duckling was dead and we assumed that the female duck had been trying to save it. We could not have been more wrong.

Just ahead we saw a mother duck and nearly a dozen little ducklings. No father duck was to be seen, but the ducklings were loyally following their mother. We then watched this other female duck grab one of the ducklings and very purposely drown it! We realized in that moment that that is exactly what had happened with the previously little ducky we thought she was trying to revive. No, she was committing murder. I started screaming at this duck, we were looking for things to throw at it, but there was nothing we could do to prevent this duck from picking off these poor little ducklings one by one and taking their lives.

All three of us walked away in tears and greatly disturbed. I had no idea this happened in nature, but it does. Female ducks will kill ducklings that are not their own and that they see as intruders. How awful is that? I wish I could get those terrible images out of my head and out of the minds of my children.

Nature is a cruel world and I walked away realizing that as awful as human beings can be sometimes, at least it's not common place for us to do that!

I think I'm going to need a therapy session after the trauma and please be careful when you take your kids to see the ducks. They aren't as innocent as they may seem.

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