[00:00:00] Crystal: I am Crystal DiMiceli, and welcome to the Forces for Nature Show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who’s doing great things for animals and the environment. We talk about the challenge they’re addressing the solution.

Sound, what keeps them going, and we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that YouTube can become a force for nature. Today’s guest is Mary Beth Purdy Arts. We’ve known each other for 15 years now, but ever since I left New York 10 years ago, we had fallen out of touch other than social media here and there.

Until the day that I watched a documentary called hok, besides being the sweetest movie, Mary Beth makes an appearance in it in a very important way. She’s the wildlife rescue expert that the main character of the documentary contacts about a dumped goose she found in her local park. Now, what is a dumped goose?

The question is actually bigger than that because it’s not just about geese. And the answer might just surprise you.

[00:01:27] Mary Beth: Hi, Mary

[00:01:27] Crystal: Beth. Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. It’s so great to have you. Oh,

[00:01:32] Mary Beth: thank you so much, crystal. I really, really appreciate you doing your podcast and touching on the subject that we’re gonna talk about today. So it’s really very much needed and so appreciated.

[00:01:43] Crystal: I admire what you do so much, and following your social media.

I’m. So shocked with the animals that you find and touched with what you do. So let’s get into that. How did you start rescuing

[00:01:58] Mary Beth: animals? It came from a need. I mean, when I was a young kid, my dad would do that as well. He would rescue cats’, dogs, he would often take in injured birds. Before we knew rehabbers were even around anywhere.

But recently, I would say over the last 15 years or. It came out of a need. Being at the park a lot and being in areas where there were issues, whether it be dumped animals or injured wildlife from human activity, it all stems from a need. And you know, perhaps other people weren’t around parks, people weren’t around, or there wasn’t time to wait for anyone.

And so that’s how it really started. My motto is like, just try to do something. Don’t leave an animal there. Try to do something, get it out of harm’s way, and then figure out what to do after that. And

[00:02:50] Crystal: are you a part of an organization or something whose mission is to do this?

[00:02:55] Mary Beth: Well, Back in 2010, the U S D A came and killed 368 Canada Geese in their Goslings in Prospect Park, and that was due to the plane that went down in the Hudson in January of 2010.

And so the mayor decided, well, we’re gonna go and kill 368 yeast in Prospect Park and thousands more around this city. What. Canada Geese are my favorite bird ever, and it really hurt me to my core that this happened. And I had never done anything ever before. I mean, I taught it for Wildlife Conservation Society.

I would foster kittens or whatever, but this fueled me so much because what they did was take away the joy and inspiration I would see fly over my house every day. And so out of that on Facebook. People were up in arms and trying to get info from the park, and a group of community members just came together and said, we’re gonna have a rally and we’re gonna fight for this.

And as we did that and we had all these protests in the city, we eventually, around the neighborhood and in Prospect Park, we came up with a group called Wilder Prospect Park, and we were hoping out of that we would be able to work with the. Organization and be a partner somehow where this would never happen again.

And that we could also do some good, like maybe clean up the lake and things like that. So that is where wild for Prospect Park came in. And when we would be out and you’re out and about and you’re cleaning, you find all kinds of things. You find injured animals and you find dumped animals. And so that’s where it stemmed from.

That’s where it started from community members. Wanting to make sure that injustice never happened again. I’m pretty

[00:04:51] Crystal: sure I was in Prospect Park that year, around that time, and I can’t believe, I don’t remember that happening.

[00:04:56] Mary Beth: Was it, it was in July of that year, and what they did was they came in either late evening or early morning most likely, and rounded them up when they were in their malting when the, the adults were malting and the goslings couldn’t fly at that point.

and they rounded them up and they brought them to a mobile gassing chamber. And I still like, it’s my gut hurts when I think of what they did just really as a ruse, it never solved the issue because we’re only the Atlantic Flyway. You can’t stop birds who’ve been flying for thousands and thousands of years along this path.

You can’t stop them, but you build airports. In this area. So that didn’t make sense. And yeah, it really hurt really badly and the community was just destroyed by it. So out of that, we started that group.

[00:05:46] Crystal: Well, in a way, something wonderful Rose from the ashes Absolutely. Of that tragedy. And what you guys are doing is really amazing.

So you mentioned. Injured versus dumped animals. Let’s talk about that, like what’s a dumped

[00:06:04] Mary Beth: animal? A dumped animal is an animal most likely domestic, and that means domestic animals are animals like cats, dogs, animals that are over thousands of years have been bred to live alongside humans, and they depend on humans for their survival.

So sometimes you’ll find cats in the park, you’ll find dogs. Not very often. The dogs are usually just lost dogs off leash time, and they get separated from their owners. But what we find is that we find domestic ducks, chickens, roosters, Guinea pigs, and most recently, and this is not a domestic animal, it’s a wild animal.

Most recently an alligator was dumped in the park and someone had her as a. Which she shouldn’t have because they’re illegal in New York state and they most likely kept You have period . Yeah. They’re illegal. You cannot have them. And they must have kept her in the bathtub. And the reason being is because she swallowed a bathtub stopper and she was only 15 pounds when they pulled her out of the lake.

This was what, two or three weeks ago? And right now she’s being cared for at, at the Bronx Zoo. . She’s only 15 pounds. She should weigh about 35 pounds, and she’s still pretty weak, so they can’t get that stopper out, but that’s a dumped animal. Even though that’s a wild animal, no one should have it as a pet.

Mm-hmm. . But any animal that you dump in a city park or anywhere out in the wild, they can’t fend for themselves. You take a dump duck. This is a domestic duck, like the white pecan ducks, all those little fluffy yellow ducks that people buy at Easter. And we’re dreading Easter this year because we know it’s gonna happen like a month or two down the road.

Ponds all over the world will be filled with dumped ducks. They can’t fly. They can’t find food and then they can’t escape predators. And in the middle of the winter, as we’re, well almost at the end now, but when lakes freeze and other birds leave, these guys are left on frozen ponds and lakes and usually die.

And often when they’re dumped, especially if they’re dumped and they’re really young, they don’t survive more than a night or two, but they get picked off by predators. They starve. So a domestic animal is one that you would have as a pet. And then people, yeah, can’t care for them anymore, don’t want the responsibility, didn’t realize what it would take to care for them, and they get overwhelmed and they end up just putting them out in parks thinking that they’ll be okay.

[00:08:45] Crystal: Now, how would someone know if what they’re looking at is a dump? Duck, let’s say,

[00:08:51] Mary Beth: versus a wild duck. That is a really good question, and we’re really trying to get the word out on that. So a wild duck, like a mallard duck or wood ducks, the Canada geese that live in the lakes, but we’ll take a mallard duck, for example.

Their bodies are different. Physiologically, they’re different. The wild ducks are smaller, they’re more streamlined, their wings are longer for. And they don’t look like they’re lost out there. They’re completely capable of surviving on their own because they come with all the instincts to look for food, to escape predators.

They fly off. But a domestic duck is a duck that’s usually much larger. They are bred for meat and eggs, so they can’t fly. They’re too heavy and their fly feathers are shorter. So, . Oftentimes you’ll see a dump duck out there, a domestic duck that is in the water, and it can kind of maybe move from point A to point B in the water, but it can never leave the pond.

It can’t get up more than a few feet in the air if that, but most of them, they’ll flap their wings across the water to escape. Hmm. You’ll often see a dump duck on land that looks lost if it’s alone. and domestic ducks, they’re not always white. They come in brown and different shades of brown green. Many look like large mallards.

There’s a breed called the Rowan Duck, and they look like a large mallard male. So to an untrained eye, they would say, oh, that’s a big mallard guy. They look different. They oftentimes, if they’re dumped in a group like the six that I just had here, six were dumped together and they actually move as a unit together.

They’re so afraid to be separated. So if you see something like that, it’s like, wow, look at these guys. What are they doing? They just look off. So usually color and size will give you an indication that that animal is, that duck is. ,

[00:10:52] Crystal: and I think you answered this already, but why would somebody dump any of their

[00:10:58] Mary Beth: animals?

Yeah. We’ll take ducks for instance, or even chickens like the school hatching projects are starting up again, I’m sure. And people like, we’ll take a school hatching project, so a teacher might show her students. The miracle of life. So we’re gonna hatch some eggs, be it chicken or ducklings, and the kids get to see they have the incubators in school, which most likely many times don’t work.

There are many issues. Animals don’t survive often because they’re left over the weekends or the temperature, and the incubator is not right. Mother birds turn their eggs methodically. They know what to do. Say for example, you have this hatching project. The teacher hatches all these little chickens and ducklings, and the novelty is over.

The kids see them hatch. Okay, so now what do we do? Oh gee, I don’t know. There are places that take them back, but they really just take them back as food. They don’t go to live on a farm and live happily ever after. But if that’s not the case, what they do is they take. And they will oftentimes dump them in parks thinking that they’ll live okay out there.

People get them an Easter time for their kids as pets. Easter gifts. So we’ll get our checks, little bunnies, chicks and duck and bunnies. Bunnies too. Can’t forget bunnies. And so that novelty wears off so quickly. What do you do? Oh, gee. Well boy, that little duck is making a mess. And the rabbits are really hard to take care of.

They’re so specific with their diet and they get overwhelmed. Well, let’s just put ’em outside. So I think 99% of the time people don’t realize they’re not doing the right thing. They don’t have any other options. And so, okay, it’s an animal, it will be okay outside and nothing could be further from the truth.

And this

[00:12:52] Crystal: could actually perpetuate a bigger problem.

[00:12:55] Mary Beth: Yeah, because people say visiting the parks, They probably wouldn’t notice if an animal is just blending in. They wouldn’t notice however, There are instances where there are places where ducks will be dumped or people will see, oh, that looks like a pet rabbit.

Well, I guess it’s okay to bring my rabbit out here and I can just do that. I don’t wanna keep him anymore. And oftentimes we’ll see that there’s a pond that has dumped ducks already and that will give license to other people thinking, okay, we can bring them here. There’s other ducks here that look like my guys.

That’s a problem. . There’s also a big problem as far as rescuers go and resources and sanctuaries that there aren’t enough homes out there. Rescuing a lot of these animals takes a lot of strategy and a lot of time and training to get them to come in close enough so they’re trusting. And also when you dump domestic animals out in the wild, say in the lake or the wooded area, You’re putting existing populations of animals in danger, threatening their survival because you don’t know if they have any diseases or viruses.

They’ll compete for food sources and it just disrupts the whole ecosystem. So it affects everyone. It’s not just the animal that’s getting dumped. Speaking

[00:14:21] Crystal: of food, I just wanna make a side note cuz many people don’t know this and I didn’t know. Myself back in the day, but don’t feed bread Absolutely. To the ducks that you see in the pond.

Bread is actually not good for them.

[00:14:36] Mary Beth: Yeah, that’s, we don’t use bread if it’s a difficult rescue. I wasn’t telling you I was. No, no, no. That’s, no, I agree with you and I’d like to touch on that. We use waterfowl food and we’re out there actually telling people. You’re actually doing more harm by taking your loaves of bread and feeding the birds.

They get a lot of nutritional deficiencies and they become dependent on people and they get fearless of humans, and it’s a dangerous situation for them as well as for you. So you’re right. We never feed wildlife unless we’re doing a rescue.

[00:15:08] Crystal: And what happens

[00:15:10] Mary Beth: after they get rescued? When they get rescued, we take them.

Usually it depends on where the rescue is and who’s the closest foster. We have the network of foster people. That have space that that can hold them until we can find homes. Sometimes it takes a long time. Right now we’ve got four male ducks that were rescued about a month and a half ago. We still don’t have homes for them.

Males are really difficult to find homes for, but once we do get everything settled, they go to a sanctuary. Or they go to homes where people actually have enclosures and space and may already have a flock of docks or chickens. But we vet like everywhere they go, we make sure that it’s a proper home for them.

They can live there, they will be cared for and will be safe. But we’re really, really meticulous about. .

[00:16:05] Crystal: So what can someone with this kind of animal in their home do instead?

[00:16:09] Mary Beth: I think even proactively, before you even think of getting an animal, the best thing to do is. Assess your situation. Do you live in an apartment?

Do you live in a country home? Do you have a big backyard? Am I in a place where this animal is not allowed because ducks are illegal to have a New York City. Chickens are okay. Roosters are illegal. But even in like the country areas like on on Long Island or Jersey, there are municipalities that don’t allow.

And then there are some that allow them. So you have to think about your living conditions, your space, the money that it will take for you to care for the animal, because they’re gonna need vet care, food enrichment. , and a lot of these are impulse buys and people are not really thinking it through. Like during the pandemic, a lot of people were going out and adopting animals because they were home.

But then as things started to get back to normal, we found an uptick in surrendering of animals and dumping. Mm-hmm. . So you really need to think about your situation and don’t just make it an impulse buy. Like your child says, oh, I want this. , don’t run out and buy it. No. And definitely do not buy them as gifts for people, whether it’s Easter, Christmas, any holiday, birthday.

Yeah. Let it be a joint decision with a family or after you really think the decision through then mm-hmm. , you think about it.

[00:17:39] Crystal: Yeah. They’re living, breathing beings and they require care and a lot of responsibility on your end, so you have to keep all of that in mind before bringing one on. I think people already know that in a way, if they’re thinking about bringing in a dog or a cat, perhaps.

I don’t know if that transfers so much over to, oh, well let’s bring this adorable little chick. Well, this chick is gonna become a chicken and . Exactly. You gotta think

[00:18:10] Mary Beth: about that. Mm-hmm. , and as one who takes them in all the time, especially with ducks, you can’t even imagine the amount of poop because they literally poop every three seconds and people just get to that point where they can’t keep up.

and that’s when they get dumped out. Yeah,

[00:18:30] Crystal: that’s a really good point. Remember, everything poops, , .

[00:18:34] Mary Beth: Everyone

[00:18:35] Crystal: poops. And besides dumping, you also help rescue animals who are entangled in fishing line and whatnot. How does that happen?

[00:18:45] Mary Beth: Well, that is a huge problem and it is constant. Recently there was a great blue heron.

I had never rescued a heron before and I was coming back from doing our rounds, checking around the park, and there was a group of people watching this bird and I thought, what’s going on? And it was a great blue heron. Completely entangled in fishing line with a little piece of line trailing behind. And I was able to grab that little trail of line and grab the heron.

And you’ve gotta watch herons because of their bills. They’ll poke your eyes out. Oh, that’s, so I bar I borrowed and they’re huge. So I borrowed someone’s glasses just to protect my eyes. And I took my jacket and threw it over the head cuz it was just gonna drown otherwise, it was right by the water’s edge.

This is all due to people who are fishing that either cut their line when it gets snagged on something or leave their line hooks, lead sinkers around. People are not picking up after themselves and. A lot of times it’s because they get hooked on something and they cut it and walk away. So we beg people, please, if you know you’ve hooked someone, do not cut your line and walk away.

If you know there’s an issue, if somebody’s entangled in the line that you were using, let someone know. Just be responsible. I think if people are gonna be allowed to fish in a public park where it’s catch and release only, you can’t. Take the fish out for sustenance, then you really need to abide by the rules and it is getting pretty bad out there.

We’ve got people that use triple pronged, barbed hooks, which are illegal, and they’ll often get caught like on the rest of an animal, and then the bird will try to get it out, whether it’s bill and get stuck in the bill too. It is really tough out there for them. So between the. And the hooks, we just try to get out and educate people about picking up their stuff.

Now I wanna

[00:20:52] Crystal: bring up a movie that you were a part of, which tells the true story of, uh, dumped domestic goose, right? Mm-hmm. , the movie’s called Honk, and it was just so heartwarming and touching. I absolutely adored this movie. Can you tell us a little bit about.

[00:21:13] Mary Beth: It’s so funny how I ended up getting involved in it because my background is theater and music, and one of my Broadway friends, Judy McClain, she’s a big animal person, and so over the years we had connected about the animals, whatever, and she knew that I had been doing rescue and Judy’s in New York and her friend Cheryl Allison, who is a filmmaker, but also a Broadway actor, lives in Dallas.

and this was during the pandemic, and she was running in the park one day and saw this goose, and she’s like, that doesn’t look like a wild goose, like a Canada goose. So she was curious. So she reached out to Judy and Judy said, oh no, that’s not a wild goose. That’s a domestic goose. You need to talk to my friend Mary Beth.

She can probably help you. So that’s how we connected and. She was a filmmaker, so being a filmmaker, she decided to document this whole journey with her potential rescue of Honk and her daily coming and goings and showing how dangerous it was for honk this domestic goose to be out there in a city park by himself and Honk had had a mate and.

They never found where the mate was. People said that he had had a mate. So that’s how I got involved in that and it’s really brought a lot of attention all around the world. His story, the story and plight of domestic animals being dumped and just showing kindness to animals and respect for your outside parks and wild areas and how important it is.

To keep it clean and safe for animals as well. So it touched on a lot of good stuff. Yeah,

[00:22:59] Crystal: it was such a lovely movie. And to wrap up, what can the listener do to help, either from wherever they are or if they think they see dumped or injured animals? The.

[00:23:13] Mary Beth: I guess I would say depending on where you live, every city should have an S P C A or a wildlife help center, and there are so many resources online that you can look up.

You

[00:23:26] Crystal: Google Wildlife Rehabilitator.

[00:23:28] Mary Beth: Yeah, like you can Google Wildlife Rehabilitation during the United States. Just look within your state and you should have a list of resources in different countries, I’m sure. Areas and places that can help. And as far as for domestic animals that are dumped, same thing.

Rescue groups. There are so many rescue groups on Facebook online. Here in New York City, we’ve got what’s called the New York City Animal Rescue Emergency Group. And so when you see whether it be an a possum that’s maybe hit by a car or a pigeon that looks like it might need help on the street, people will go online and say, Hey, I see this animal.

Can anybody help? And a lot of people jump in. So I think. People need to understand there are people out there that can really help that are there to help them. They just have to reach out. And if you’ve got a pet at home that you’re no longer able to take care of, and you want the best possible outcome for them, because I’m sure they, the person loves this animal, I’m sure they’ve bonded somehow, and you wanna do the right thing, just reach out to someone.

Before you go out and dump it anywhere instead of giving it a death sentence, because that’s what will happen if you ultimately just put it out and let it fend for itself. But just know there’s help out there and

[00:24:55] Crystal: you are one of those individuals who do so much help. Thank you so much, Mary Beth. Oh, you’re making a difference.

[00:25:04] Mary Beth: Oh, crystal, thank you. And so are you with this amazing podcast and all you have done, so I really appreciate what you do as well. We’re all in this together. It’s our planet, right? Absolutely.

[00:25:23] Crystal: A popular time to buy bunnies, chicks, and ducks is fast approaching. And I wanted to highlight the serious problem of animal dumping to hopefully discourage you or have you discourage others from buying these animals. The responsibility of caring for them is much greater than one realizes and quote unquote, releasing them into freedom when they’re no longer tiny acute is the worst thing you could do for them and the ecosystem.

Just look at the Python problem in the ever. On your next park visit, keep an eye out for dumped animals loose fishing line and hooks, and share what you’ve learned with other visitors. You may just save a life or two. Don’t forget to go to forces for nature.com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist.

To help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at Becoming Forces for Nature, and let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that.

What difference for the world are you going to make?