Denis Choquette, 38, of Dandurand St. was accused of stealing 17 birds from a stable at 2440 Rachel in 1963.
The birds were kept in Lafontaine Park in the summertime and had a value of about $1,000.
The birds were kept in Lafontaine Park in the summertime and had a value of about $1,000.
They were all dead including two black swans.
He pleaded not guilty.
For decades there was a duck house in the middle of Beaver Lake from which large white ducks would emerge to be fed by the throngs of enthusiastic visitors.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately late one night in 1982 some vandals took it upon themselves to kill some of these ducks as well as to deface and destroy other public property near the lake. (See the Montreal Gazette for July 9, 1982, page 3). Not long after this horrible and mindless incident, the city decided to remove the ducks and their house rather than risk further outrages.
A similar event took place in Westmount Park in 1986 when several ducks were found killed in and around their duck houses. However, this time it was believed that the perpetrators were raccoons.
Today, Beaver Lake is plagued by neverending hordes of gulls--a problem which persists elsewhere in the Montreal area, of course, and which the federal government seems unwilling or unable to rectify.
Apparently only Ottawa has jurisdiction over these so-called "migratory birds", despite the fact that local "city gulls"
evidently do not migrate at all partly because they have been spoiled by people who insist on feeding them. The result is that they have been multiplying out of control for decades and their nesting places protected rather than reduced.
When will this foolish policy end? Would it take a bird flu epidemic to get the government to take action?
I will never forget one day in 1966. I was in my high school metal work class and a bunch of us had gathered to gaze out of the window at a large white gull squatting in the very centre of the football field--a very unusual sight indeed in a residential part of the city!
Who could have guessed that over the next several years we would be inundated with these annoying "flying rats"?
I had heard that the Westmount park ducks were clubbed to death with hockey sticks. Urban legend?
ReplyDeleteFor the 1986 Westmount Park incident, see the Gazette for July 16, 1986, page 4--article by Nick Auf der Maur.
ReplyDeleteIf there was indeed a "hockey stick" vandal attack, it may have occurred at a different time.