Like beacons on the bank of Denton North Lakes Park’s south pond, a few white ducks sit on high alert for dangers. Even to the untrained eye, these white Pekin ducks are noticeably out of place among the other dark-colored ducks.
About a dozen of these ducks, coming in all shades and breeds, at North Lakes Park appear to have been domestically bred and dumped defenseless, Jessica Escue suspects.
Nearly each day since April, and sometimes several times per day, Escue has come to the park’s southern conservation pond to care for the vulnerable domestic ducks.
“They can’t fly and they can’t protect themselves,” Escue said. “When it flooded out here a few weeks ago, these [domestic ducks] were standing under the base of a small tree because it was the only higher ground. These other ducks can fly out of here.”
Escue is a recently former subpermittee under a Texas Parks & Wildlife permit holder, who is in the process of switching permit holders.
She has pending paperwork to be a subpermittee under wildlife rehabilitator and veterinarian Susan Gwynn. Gwynn’s office, Keller All Creatures Animal Clinic, confirmed this, and that Escue is “an experienced wildlife rehabber.”
In the past, Escue has seen domestic ducks, who are most often flightless and lacking survival instincts, meet horrible fates: being snatched by a predator or tortured by children.
But at North Lakes Park, there was one distinctive duck — by far the largest at 25 to 30 pounds — with black iridescent feathers and a red mask. He caught her eye one day when she saw him eating discarded pepperoni pizza.
This duck offered Escue a little solace for the dumped ducks’ circumstances: She said he took on the role of integrating the dumped ducks into the pecking order and protecting them.
Escue affectionately named him Vincent after the 1980s TV series Beauty and the Beast.
“Beast Vincent helped people through the tunnels and was like a guardian,” Escue said. “I named him that because he’s a guardian and such a gentle giant. But he also has this frightening exterior. People have told me they find him scary. … He embodies this kind of symbolic contradiction.”
Even though Vincent is able to fly unlike other domestic ducks, Escue said he stayed by the flightless ducks’ sides when they were stranded by the recent flooding.
Escue suspects Vincent is a domestically bred mix of Muskovy, which can be a wild or domestic duck, and other domestic ducks. She believes someone dumped him at the park about two years ago.
On Halloween, Escue’s concerns over the ducks grew stronger when she noticed a strange string of events, and then, Vincent suddenly disappeared.
At 3:15 p.m. that day, Escue said, she witnessed people standing around the wooded area near the bridge on the south pond with a plastic container. After they left, Vincent alerted her to several new white Pekin ducks where those people had just been.
“They were out of here before I could realize what they were doing. He took me to those ducks, or I wouldn’t have realized it. That’s why I didn’t have time to get over there to take a picture of their license plate.”
That night around 10 p.m., Escue watched Vincent nestle in for bed on the banks. When she returned the next morning, about 10 hours later, she found Vincent’s iridescent feathers where she’d seen him sleeping, but Vincent was nowhere to be found.
Escue said there had never been a time when she visited the park and Vincent could not be found. She combed through the woods around both the south and north pond all weekend to no avail.
“I feel like he deserves to be looked for because that’s how he would approach the situation,” Escue said. “He takes care of everyone here.”
Stranger yet: A short distance from where Vincent was sleeping, Escue found a message that appeared on the ground overnight.
The Denton Record-Chronicle visited the park Monday to see the still-present message. On the grass lay dozens of plucked cattail reeds, with their brown flowering spikes mostly ripped off.
An unknown person arranged the fluffy cattail seeds to spell out “KYLE IS GAY” and created a 10- to 15-foot illustration of a penis.
“This indicates to me that humans were near him for several hours after 10 p.m.,” Escue said in an email.
Escue contacted a Denton Police Department officer to make a vandalism report about the cattail message.
Police spokesperson Amy Cunningham confirmed an officer did take a report and statement from Escue. However, Cunningham said the report is listed as an “information only” report because it is unlikely any prosecutable criminal case would come from it.
The report noted that there are no surveillance cameras in the area.
Escue does not entirely discount the possibility that a predator killed Vincent. She has seen it happen to another domestic duck at North Lakes.
In June, Escue said, she witnessed a man dumping two female white Pekin ducks at the park, recorded a video of the incident, and reported it to a Denton Animal Services officer.
Within a month, Escue said, one of those ducks disappeared, likely killed by another animal. The duck’s sister, whom Escue named Speck for her polka-dotted beak, remains at the pond and was under the watchful eye of Vincent until Halloween night.
However, it is hard for Escue to believe that just any animal could attack a duck as large as Vincent, especially since he can fly.
She worries, given that it was Halloween night and the cattail message, that a person might have harmed him.
“With most of these animals, if they disappeared, I would be like, ‘Yeah, a predator got them.’” Escue said. “But not this one. … Like, show me a predator that could take this animal from the air or by land without there being evidence. I don’t think that’s possible. A two-legged predator? Possible.”
Later on Monday, a University of North Texas student studying new media art, Kiera Gurdgiel, was at the park to work on an assignment for her photography class.
“I recently decided I was going to do for my next project photos of birds because I’m a very big bird fan,” Gurdgiel said. “They are probably my favorite animal, and I used to want to do veterinarian stuff. So, animals have a very special place in my heart.”
There, she met Escue, who filled her in on the dumped ducks, Vincent’s disappearance and the cattail message.
“When she told me everything, I … wanted to spread the word because I wanted to see if I could try and help at all,” Gurdgiel said.
Escue and Gurdgiel further searched around the area for any clues about Vincent. Closer to Bonnie Brae Street, about 500 feet from the message, Escue said she found more ripped-up cattails.
Near there, Gurdgiel said she found more iridescent black feathers, and Escue identified them as Vincent’s.
“It wasn’t a nice view,” Gurdgiel said. “It looked like whenever you see a child or something taken by an animal. It reminded me of when we had our chickens disappear, and there would be bunches of feathers left over. … It was closer to the road and spread out for a good distance.”
The sight made Escue visibly emotional, Gurdgiel said.
“I helped her collect some of the feathers as a sort of comfort,” Gurdgiel said.
Gurdgiel said she is not entirely sure what to think — whether Vincent encountered a human or an animal that night.
“Just thinking logically, like without any emotions attached — because that’s a bit easier for me to do than her, since she knew the duck — I think it was probably a large predator,” Gurdgiel said. “I keep thinking back to my experience with my mom owning chickens and stuff. When a predator tries to go after someone lower in the pecking order, that’s when the leader steps up and will try to fight.”
With four new ducks having just been dumped, Gurdgiel said, it’s possible they wandered closer to the road, where a predator found them and Vincent attempted to intervene.
“I’m still hoping that with everything that happened, we can at least get the word out about this a bit more,” Gurdgiel said.
Escue said she hopes that spreading the word will help her locate Vincent, hopefully still alive and safe.
Further, she hopes Vincent’s disappearance — whether by a large predator or a nefarious late-night parkgoer — can shed some light on the dumpings.
“If someone as special as Vincent is dead, it shouldn’t be for nothing,” Escue said.
With the vigilant Vincent gone, she worries more ducks will end up like Speck’s sister unless humans intervene.
“More so [worried] than I would have been normally,” Escue said, pointing to Speck when a Record-Chronicle reporter visited the park Monday. “I don’t know if you can tell, but she is on high alert.”
Escue said she has contacted the city’s Animal Services department and Texas Game Warden David Spangler several times to discuss people abandoning domestic ducks at the park.
Spangler told the Record-Chronicle that while dumping domestic animals is illegal and can be a matter the game wardens handle, it is not something they can focus on.
There are five game wardens in Denton County, Spangler said, who cover the 1,000 square miles of county territory with three sizable lakes.
“Our big three priorities are hunting, fishing and boating,” Spangler said. “I mean, we are state police officers, and we can handle [dumping]. But when you bring us into a resource where there’s 254 counties and however many municipalities, there are a lot more of those officers than there are of us. Regretfully, there are a lot of things that are illegal, but law enforcement can’t get to all of them.”
Even if the game wardens do have the availability to look into individual dumping cases, they can be difficult to resolve.
“If we get a person saying, ‘Hey, four ducks were dumped here,’ are we concerned about that? Absolutely,” Spangler said. “But then how can we track that down? Well, if we don’t get a license plate or description, it makes it difficult to get an end result.”
Spangler recommended that any residents who witness animals being dumped or mistreated report the incident to their local law enforcement first, and they can request game warden assistance if needed.
“If it’s a white duck, that is obviously domesticated,” Spangler said. “If it’s a mallard or things like that, that’s where we’ll start getting involved. We’ve had some incidents, usually around egg-laying time, where people mess with nests, which is both a state and federal violation.”
Spangler also said residents can report incidents online to the game wardens’ crime stoppers program, Operation Game Thief. He recommended tipsters provide specific details and video or photo evidence, if possible.
Escue told the Record-Chronicle she has contacted the city’s Animal Services several times with little success and worries more duck lives will be lost if the matter is overlooked.
She shared an email exchange from July 22 with Senior Animal Services Officer Calvin Sanders. His email states he was still working on the dumping case that Escue reported on June 26, and that the license plate she provided did not yield a current address for the person who dumped the ducks.
Escue said she reached out to report the ducks that were dumped hours before Vincent disappeared. She reached out multiple times but did not receive a response
Escue told the Record-Chronicle on Friday morning that she went to Animal Services on Wednesday to force a conversation. Supervisor Morgan Stumbaugh spoke with Escue, who expressed concern about the situation and told Escue she would see if they can open an animal cruelty case, Escue said.
After that conversation, Escue said, she went to the pond and noticed another domestic duck, which she named Drest, was missing. She had not found Drest as of Friday morning.
The Record-Chronicle contacted city spokesperson Dustin Sternbeck to inquire if Animal Services is still investigating the June dumping case, if it had received Escue’s communications about the Halloween dumping, and what actions Animal Services or Parks and Recreation could take regarding ducks dumped at the city park.
Sternbeck told the Record-Chronicle on Tuesday that he would look into the inquiries. After the Record-Chronicle reached out again Wednesday and Thursday, Sternbeck messaged early Friday that he had not heard from Animal Services.
The Record-Chronicle also contacted Sanders via email Thursday afternoon to inquire about the dumpings but did not immediately receive a response.
As Escue waits to hear more about if the city can help, she provided the following advice to people about owning and rehoming ducks.
“Rather than highlighting reliance on a rescue or rescuer, which could assist in a medical emergency, if it were me and I am rehoming a duck, I would personally look for someone with land and a pond that was willing to protect the animals at night from predators,” Escue said.
Escue recommended that if a resident finds an injured duck, Keller All Creatures Animal Clinic can assist with emergency medical bird care. The clinic’s phone number is 817-377-7165.
Escue also cautioned people against purchasing ducks unless they expect to care for them for many years, as they can live upward of a decade or two if well cared for.