Duck Hunter … Or Savior?
Over the past 13 summers, some 25,000 ducks have owed their lives to the efforts of one man.
CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone reports on efforts to save the lives of thousands of baby ducks and the unlikely hero who's leading the way — duck rescuer and ranch manager Patrick Marman.
To thousands of baby ducks, ranch manager Marman is an improbable midwife.
"Just couldn't quite get his head unwound, but he's fine," said Marman as he helped a newborn duckling out of its shell.
After all, Marman is an enthusiastic duck hunter.
"Just because we hunt does not mean we don't care about these animals, because we do," he said.
In fact Marman spends much less time hunting ducks than he does rescuing them.
Ducks once had plenty of good places to live in California's Central Valley but with growing farms and subdivisions, 95 percent of the original wetlands here have disappeared.
With little other choice, ducks too often build their nests in farmer's fields. But few eggs survive once a harvester or a plough moves through.
That is, unless one of Marman's rescue teams has come through first to scare up ducks, revealing their threatened nests.
"I always look at it like Easter egg hunting," said Marman as he and the volunteers shooed ducks and looked for nests.
Sometimes they save hundreds of eggs in a single field.
Then in Marman's incubator, the miracle of life resumes.
Marman grabbed a bunch of just-hatched ducks among the shells, and lifted them out.
"These guys are pretty wet," he said.
Once they hatch, the ducklings grow quickly.
Blackstone asked Marman if he sometimes felt like a father or grandfather.
"It's kinda hard to say but, yeah, I feel like a parent," he said.
When they are almost ready to fly, Marman releases them in one of the Central Valley's remaining wetlands.
Of course, in hunting season, those wetlands are where the hunters go. But only about one in 10 of the rescued ducks is ever shot.
Pat Marman's goal is to give back to nature much more than he takes.