There are concerns for a group of domestic ducks that have turned up in McLaren Falls Park.

Falls Café manager Alice Campbell first noticed the influx a couple weeks ago.

'You can tell they're lost, they look very distressed,” she says.

'They do go down to the lake, but spend most of their time hunting about for food. They kind of get into places they shouldn't – they've been up to the ranger's house.”

Alice strongly suspects they're ‘domestic', or hand-fed ducks, although she's at a loss to explain how they ended up at McLaren Falls.

'It's common for people to dump chickens, but not usually ducks. Certainly not anything like these numbers.”

She says the ranger knows about them, and is keen for someone to come and pick them up.

'Hopefully someone with experience with ducks will come up to adopt them. They shouldn't be too hard to catch.”

If the ducks don't get rescued soon, though, the alternative isn't looking good.

'They're starving to death, basically. They're down from 25 to 18. We feed them as much as we can, but it's a lot of ducks to feed.

'Eventually they may learn to feed themselves and integrate, but a few will probably die before then.”

Tauranga City Council Parks & Recreation Manager Mark Smith says animals are regularly dumped at the park, including pigs, roosters and chickens, cats and dogs.

'We always try to rehome the animals if possible. Our park ranger has even adopted a couple of chickens that were dumped there,” he says.As you can see, one can get quite close to them.

Council has been working with a wildlife organisation to help rehome them, but the organisation is not able to take on so many animals at once.

'People who dump animals, particularly birds, at McLaren Falls often think they will be happy in their new environment, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. The reality is that animals raised by humans don't know how to cope - the other animals in the park are self-sufficient. If you own livestock, you are responsible for it.”

If you would like to adopt one or more of the ducks, please contact the McLaren Falls Park Ranger on 07 577 7000.