A San Antonio Duck Story

A Duck Story from the Riverwalk in San  Antonio

Michael R. is an  accounting clerk at Frost Bank and works there in a  second story office.  Several weeks ago, he  watched a mother duck choose the concrete awning  outside his window as the unlikely place to build a  nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid ten eggs in  a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched  over 10 feet in the air. She   dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks, and Monday  afternoon all of her ten ducklings  hatched.

Michael worried  all night how the momma duck was going to get those  babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown,  urban environment to take to water, which typically  happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching.  Tuesday  morning, Michael watched the mother duck encourage her  babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to  show them how to jump off.  Office work came to a  standstill as everyone gathered to  watch.

The mother flew  down below and started quacking to her babies above.  In disbelief Michael watched as the first fuzzy  newborn trustingly toddled to the edge and  astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the  cement below. Michael couldn’t stand to watch this  risky effort nine more times!  He dashed out of  his office and ran down the stairs to the  sidewalk where the first obedient duckling, near its  mother, was resting in a stupor after  the near-fatal fall.  Michael stood out of sight  under the awning-planter, ready to  help.

As the second  one took the plunge, Michael jumped forward and caught  it with his bare hands before it hit the  concrete. Safe and sound, he set it down it  by its momma and the other stunned sibling, still  recovering from that painful leap.  (The  momma must have sensed that Michael was trying to  help her  babies.)

One by one the  babies continued to jump. Each time Michael hid under  the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as  the duckling made its free fall.  At the scene  the busy downtown sidewalk traffic came to a  standstill.  Time after time, Michael was able to  catch the remaining eight and set them by their  approving  mother.

At this point  Michael realized the duck family had only made part of  its dangerous journey. They had two full blocks  to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs  and past pedestrians to get to the closest open  water, the San Antonio   River, site of the  famed “River Walk.”  The onlooking office  secretaries and several San  Antonio police officers joined  in.  An empty copy-paper box was  brought to collect the babies. They carefully  corralled them, with the mother’s approval, and loaded  them in the container. Michael held the box low enough  for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated  through the downtown streets toward the    San  Antonio River . The mother  waddled behind and kept her babies in sight, all the  way.

As they reached  the river, the mother took over and passed him,  jumping in the river and quacking loudly. At the  water’s edge, Michael tipped the box and helped  shepherd the babies toward the water and to  the waiting mother after their adventurous  ride.

All ten darling  ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up  snugly to momma. Michael said the mom swam in circles,  looking back toward the beaming bank bookkeeper, and  proudly  quacking.

At last,  all present and accounted for: “We’re all together  again.  We’re here!  We’re  here!”

And here’s  a family portrait before they head outward to  further  adventures…

Like all of us  in the big times of our life, they never could have  made it alone without lots of helping hands.  I  think it gives the name of San  Antonio ’s famous “River Walk” a whole  new meaning!  Maybe you will want to share this  story with others.

Thanks to Kayla for passing this wonderful story on to me!

FDA Drops the Ball on Pet Food Recalls and Early Warning Notification System!

Whatever Happened to the Food and Drug Administration’s Animal Feed Safety System?

On the heels of the 2007 pet food scandal the shamed-faced FDA scrabbled to regain its composure by attempting to develop animal feed safeguards. As a result, in November of 2007 the FDA released its Food Protection Plan, aptly named the Animal Feed Safety System, or AFFSS. Unfortunately, rather than take responsibility the FDA offers us a spoonful of pabulum by referring to America’s previous safety record for animal feed. Conversely the FDA’s only mention of what really prompted their action is, “the public became alarmed last year when imported feed ingredients, contaminated with melamine and related compounds, were used in pet food, which resulted in sick dogs and cats.”

That is of course an understatement. Dogs and cats did not just become ill, they died! And America’s track record for animal feed safety may be “good” compared to third-world countries but this is America and Americans expect and demand higher safety standards. It could be said that it took the death of thousands of innocent American pets to get the FDA to take action on imported and domestic pet food products.

Supposedly the FDA Food Protection Plan’s intent is to identify potential food hazards before damage occurs. Here is the FDA’s own definition of the Animal Feed Safety System’s directive:

A risk-based, preventive animal feed safety program [that] will require producers and distributors of animal feeds to take into consideration hazards, whose presence in or introduction into their feeds pose an unacceptable risk to animal or human health and to develop a plan to prevent or eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level, those hazards.

However, FDA bureaucracy enjoys adding more acts, programs, and titles, just to keep things complicated. So, not only is there an AFSS but the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 was passed to put the pressure on the FDA itself to “improve the safety of pet food and ingredients¹.” Title 10 of this act requires the FDA to establish, “by regulation, ingredient standards and definitions, processing standards, and labeling standards—including nutritional and ingredient information—for pet food. It also requires the FDA to establish an Early Warning Surveillance and Notification System to identify adulteration of the pet food supply and illness outbreaks and to notify veterinarians and other stakeholders of pet food recalls.²”

Confused by all the abbreviations, programs, titles, and acts? You are not alone! It’s no wonder that it takes a whole team of people to keep up with it all. This team is the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), also part of the FDA. In April 2008 the CVM filed its 3rd version of the AFSS Framework Document. The idea was to identify and plug in any gaps found in the original framework document. The bottom line is, what have Americans received thus far? Revisions and more revisions — all with the idea of improving the initial AFSS food protection plan.

Currently, there are still no enforceable regulations to protect pets from food contamination. Yet, it is well over a year since the deaths of thousands of America’s pets that spurred the FDA to set up the AFSS in the first place. Never mind that the tainted pet food in early 2007 resulted in a 24 million dollar lawsuit. Or that there is still no early warning notification system in place. So when will regulations for ingredients, processing, and standardization of feed labels be introduced? And, when will an early warning notification system be in place? Your guess is as good as the FDA’s!

¹2008 - Volume XXIII, No. III, FDA Newsletter

²2008 - Volume XXIII, No. III, FDA Newsletter

Phillipine Customs Keeps an Eye on China-made pet food

As reported on Saturday-Sunday, October 25-26, 2008

Manila Standard Today

By Joel E. Zurbano

CUSTOMS personnel have been put on the alert for pet food and animal feeds from China after reports said that some 1,500 dogs in Northeast China died after consuming melamine-tainted feed.

Animal feed comes as the latest addition to the growing list of China-made products and goods that the Customs bureau has been closely watching in the wake of a melamine scare that gripped the world over the past few weeks.

In a memorandum, Customs director Jairus Paguntalan told intelligence officers were assigned at the Manila International Container Port, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Port of Manila and all Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service offices nationwide to “monitor and be alert for all shipments of pet food and animal feeds made/manufactured/processed/exported from China.”

The Food and Drug Administration of the United States came up with an advisory directing the recall of pet food due to melamine content and the news report of melamine-tainted feed that killed 1,500 dogs in Beijing, China.

“Even if the reports are only about dog food, our monitoring will cover the pet food and animal feeds but it will be a case to case basis. It will cover processed meat products for dogs, cats, and the like,” Paguntalan said.

“We will hold the shipment, take samples and conduct tests,” said Paguntalan, director of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service.

While the shipment is on hold, Paguntalan said, they will check on the agency that has the proper authority to examine and to give clearance.

He explained that dog food usually comes from leftover carcass of cows and carabaos which is then grinded.

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