Woman's weird behaviour at duck pond?

[QT3point14]

Aibu to find this woman weird?

Dh and I took the kids to our local park today. The park has a little pond with some ducks and swans and we walked down to the water as our kids wanted to see the birds.
At this pond, there was another family consisting of a Mum, Dad, and two young children. This family had brought some bread to feed the ducks. Their kids seemed to be loving it and were giggling away, the animals were loving it and our kids were loving watching it.

A random woman walks by with a toddler. She stops and passive aggressively tells her child using a very loud voice, so the other family can hear her that you shouldn't feed the ducks as it's not allowed. The other family ignored her and continued with what they were doing.

The random woman then took her child over to a rusty, dirty old sign and very loudly read it out to her child. The sign states not to feed the ducks as it can attract vermin. Again the family ignored her. She read the sign very loudly again! She then rants that they are feeding the ducks white bread and this is so super harmful. This behaviour went on for a good 5 minutes with the other family continuing to ignore her.

At this point I'm thinking wtf is she trying to achieve here? Either have the balls to approach the family and share your concerns or mind your own business. What on earth was she hoping to achieve by passive aggressively randting in the background? The park was pretty busy and loads of people were staring at this poor family that just wanted to enjoy some time together.

Is it just me or is this a bit bonkers?

People have fed ducks bread for decades and decades. When there was a social media trend saying not to feed duvks bread lots of them died of starvation. The RSPB had to actually ask people to feed them bread again.

I'd wonder why this woman felt it so necessary to he such a jobsworth and make the passive aggressive comments about another family's harmless activity.

Nope, not my business in the slightest.

I identify with the PA woman though, the other day I had to cross the road to prevent myself making snippy remarks about someone climbing on a monument.

Maybe the family you've decided are arseholes don't read or understand English and were wondering why some random stranger was talking loudly and following them around with a small child?

How can anyone be team moron? She loses points just for simply not addressing the family in question if she cared that much. Instead you are supporting someone talking to a bloody sign😫

Some of you may recall I have a few wild ducks. They are indeed fed occasional leftover bread, they also have a rather expensive floating food. The latter, whilst obviously better for them, isn't always readily available to families who perhaps feed the park ducks once in a blue moon, but bread is.

Ducks will forage, they eat worms, grasses, insects. I've even seen one down a frog. But in the depths of winter with a frozen pond a round or two of Hovis, whilst not brilliant is better than nothing.

I have no rats btw, nor is my pond murky or algae filled. Oh, and my fussy buggers prefer brioche to bread and refuse all vegetables.

I remember not so long ago people were told not to feed bread to waterfowl. So people adhered to this and many of the ducks/geese swans were starving to death in the winter.
I live close to several bodies of water all heavily populated with waterfowl who are well fed by the local community.
They keep on breeding year on year so the bread doesn't seem to be harming them.
Someone should have pushed the bloody woman in the pond

I'll get my coat 😉😉

Reposting for those that didn't rtft!

As many of you know there has been a lot of debate about feeding swans and other waterfowl bread. We have always maintained that feeding them bread is fine, Today we received a this statement from The Queen’s Swan Marker, David Barber, MVO, endorsed by Professor Christopher Perrins of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University.
“There has been a great deal of press coverage in recent months regarding the ‘Ban the Bread’ campaign which is confusing many members of the public who like to feed swans. Supporters of the campaign claim that bread should not be fed to swans on the grounds that it is bad for them. This is not correct. Swans have been fed bread for many hundreds of years without causing any ill effects. While bread may not be the best dietary option for swans compared to their natural food such as river weed, it has become a very important source of energy for them, supplementing their natural diet and helping them to survive the cold winter months when vegetation is very scarce.
There is no good reason not to feed bread to swans, provided it is not mouldy. Most households have surplus bread and children have always enjoyed feeding swans with their parents. The ‘Ban the Bread’ campaign is already having a deleterious impact upon the swan population; I am receiving reports of underweight cygnets and adult birds, and a number of swans from large flocks have begun to wander into roads in search of food. This poses the further risk of swans being hit by vehicles. Malnutrition also increases their vulnerability to fatal diseases like avian-flu which has caused the deaths of many mute swans and other waterfowl in the past.
Furthermore, there have been statements made in the media claiming that feeding bread causes angel-wing in swans. Angel-wing is a condition where a cygnet develops a deformed wing. Professor Christopher Perrins, LVO, FRS of the Department of Zoology at Oxford University stated, ‘There is no evidence of a connection between feeding bread and angel-wing; at least some cygnets develop this condition without ever having seen any bread’.
I therefore encourage members of the public to continue feeding swans to help improve their chances of survival, especially through the winter.”
We’d like to Thank every one for their support and we hope that this will help these beautiful birds.

I’m sure I read some birds were starving because everyone has stopped feeding with bread, especially during wintertime?

May be false information though

Woah - I always subscribed to the bread is bad message. After reading this post I will start taking bread to the park again!

Growing up, my family home had a lake on the grounds which was home to lots of waterfowl, including ducks.

We never fed bread to the ducks because there were fish in the lake and bread is very harmful to fish.

So, while people think bread is fine for ducks, they often fail to take into account the wider populations of ponds and lakes.

I am surprised random woman didn't just show them the correct way of feeding wildfowl, are you sure she didn't chuck a massive salad in the pond @QT3point14 ?

There was a big campaign some years back re how bad bread is for ducks etc, so people heard and stopped then bird charities were telling us about how all the ducks were starving because people stopped feeding them. Better to take eg peas/lettuce but people don’t. She should have stopped her nonsense and just quietly explained that bread is really bad for them. As pp said, bread is ok for swans, but watch out for the Canada geese, omg, they’re hooligans in bird form and come at you quite aggressively!

There are so many people talking rubbish on this thread and who are not up to date with current advice.

FEED THE DUCKS BREAD - THEY NEED IT!
The ban the bread campaign was ill advised and no longer recommended.

You know what this reminds me of? "Listen, Jemima and Tarquin, we're out on our one-hour walk which Boris has graciously allowed us to have. Look at those selfish arseholes out with their grandchildren, sitting on benches, and how dare they climb over the fence to use the playground? It's locked for a reason. People will die, it's very sad."

The professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has some salient advice for Peter and Susan at one point. "There is a plan which nobody has suggested, and is well worth trying: we might all try minding our own business."

I literally had to scroll up and check the date on this as thought someone might be posting about me. It wasn’t me this time.

She should have approached the family. Her poor child, having years of this behaviour ahead!
However she wasn't at all wrong in what she was saying. It's all about communication and delivery.

We used to feed bread to the ducks at our local pond when my kids were little. Then I read about bread being bad for ducks and that you should feed them things like grapes, peas, sweetcorn and oats. So we brought those, but the ducks had absolutely zero interest in eating them.

Anyway, I think the random woman was being weird.

If you are going to be a PA arsehole at the duck pond at least get your facts right.

Apparently the ‘Ban the Bread’ campaign was started by a bird food company 😮😮😮

It looks like this only really refers to swans rather than the wider population of lake dwellers in addition to the swans.

Plus the original post also mentions that it's attracting vermin so it's causing all sorts of problems.

There are plenty of very simple and cheap alternatives to feed birds with. I don't get why people have this "I'LL FEED THE DUCKS BREAD OR NOTHING" mentality 😂

Possibly because most people have bread? And not a supply of organic artisan duck food.

indeed!

A woman you don’t know said things in earshot of other people you don’t know in the hope they’d hear and respond. They didn’t. The End.

Have you considered a hobby?

That is in spite of you doing so @ithinkthatmaybeimdreaming , not because you feed them. Do you think you know better that all the wildfowl experts?
Please stop feeding bread to ducks, it is extremely bad for them.