An Athens resident says the newly built wall at Big Springs Memorial Park off Beaty Street in Athens may be preventing ducklings from freely exiting the water, causing them to die.

A woman who left a telephone message with The News Courier, but not her name, reported that about 15 ducklings have recently died at the park and that they may have either drown or stayed too long in the water and got cold and died.

A Parks and Recreation Department employee, Christy Gill, said she had not received any calls about ducklings perishing at the pond as of Friday afternoon. She said she would ask maintenance personnel if they had seen anything. She noted that sometimes residents report problems to the Street Department or Animal Control instead of calling the Parks and Recreation Department. Parks and Recreation Director Ben Wiley was out of town Friday and not available for comment, Gill said.

Whether the ducklings drown, died of exposure or for some other reason is unknown.

The decorative brick retaining wall, which the city built earlier this year, surrounds the pond on four sides like the walls of a swimming pool. The walls rise about 2 feet from the water surface on three sides and much higher on one side.

At one end of the pond there are two small artificial rock ledges. A flightless duckling may be able to climb out of the water and onto one of the ledges in the pond. However, unless the duckling could fly, it could not get from the ledge out of the pond because the wall is too high.

At the same end of the pond, ducks can swim out of the pond via a short waterfall that takes them a foot down to a channel of shallow water between grassy banks. Although most of the 30-plus ducks at the park typically fly in and out of the pond, one adult Mallard easily navigated the waterfall exit Friday afternoon. Whether ducklings could, or would, take this route is uncertain.

According to a Web site about raising waterfowl – www.feathersite.com – “A mother duck or goose knows just how long to let her kids swim and when to take them out of the water and warm them and let them dry… If ducks stay wet, they’ll catch cold and could die… Be very sure there is a ramp with good traction so they can easily get out of the water or they may tire and drown.”

City officials will have to investigate the matter.