A duck with an arrow through its breast was a shock visitor to the Northern Advocate in Whangarei yesterday.
Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre director Robert Webb brought the maimed bird into the Advocate office, where staff were amazed to see the mallard drake vigorously trying to escape his grip, seemingly not in agony despite the severity of the injury.
"The arrow can't have hit any vital organs," the birdman said, explaining that surgery by a vet at the Bird Recovery Centre should put the young duck right.
He'd picked the mallard up at the Whangarei Falls, where he suspected it could have been shot about a week ago.
And he collected four ducks shot with arrows and a seagull pierced with a meat skewer at the Falls last month.
"There's people there who like to play with little crossbows like pistols. They think the ducks are fair game," Mr Webb said.
After making the point that wounding birds is cruel and illegal, the native bird protector got down to the reason for his call on the media.
"This is not a good look," Mr Webb said, pointing at the injured mallard.
"We have tourists visiting the Whangarei Falls. What will they think when they see birds shot like this?"
Mr Webb said the same thing was happening in the middle of Whangarei, where in the past week he had collected 10 rock pigeons stunned by eating poisoned wheat laid in a Vine St carpark to stop the birds pooping on parked cars.
"The poison makes them go into convulsions and flap around. If we don't put them in a hot water cupboard and keep them warm they die," he said.
Mr Webb called on the Whangarei District Council, SPCA and other authorities to stop "disgusting" behaviour toward birds which could give tourists the impression the city had turned its back on animal cruelty.