Jim Baggstrom takes real care of his Botanic Gardens ducks

Press, 17 June 1980, Page 19

Jim Baggstrom takes real care of his Botanic Gardens ducks

Story by

GARRY ARTHUR

Pictures by

MICHAEL McNICHOLAS

“Sorry, I was just carving up a mallard.” “Do you mean to say that you’ve roasted one of your "ducks?” “Good • heavens no. That’s the last thing we’d do here. I’ve been cutting the wing off a bird that’s been vandalised. It couldn’t be repaired.” The suggestion that he might be making a tasty dinner of a Botanic Gardens’ duck rather ruffled the feathers of Jim Baggstrom — which is not surprising. As the park ranger, he is meant to be the duck’s protector and friend.

He is, too. The vandalised mallard was being attended to at the ranger’s home in Avonhead, where he has treated and saved between 600 and 700 sick and injured birds in the last six years. He calls it his “intensive care unit.” The section is divided off so that the ducks, seagulls, pigeons, and other fowl never become tame.He feeds them over a wall to reduce contact to a minimum. When they feel well enough, the. birds just fly away. It is not part of the Gardens’ ranger’s duties to provide a hospital service for ducks. Jim Baggstrom does it because he has developed a self-help philosophy of nature conservation.

He takes the view that although one man is helpless to prevent the destruction of threatened species, he can still do his bit. And not through talk, either. He is a bit scornful of armchair conservationists.

A practical man, he is convinced that the only effective course is to put your boots on, roll up your sleeves, and get stuck in. At his own home he puts this into practice, not only by saving ducks lives but also by planting a stand of native bush. Divided off from the other uses of the property, it is being left to grow naturally, and not tended as a garden.. He reckons that if everyone planted a bit of bush..the balance might start to swing against the despoilers. « : - Jim Baggstrom is the perennial boy scout. Hesays that he. “never got past 17,” and he has spent much of his. life as a scout leader. It was while taking, rover scouts ' on a bow . .hunting . ex- £ pedition ' that, 'he . formed.-?, his revulsion. against ing. They; shot <a sow, and

her orphaned piglets had to be destroyed. “I was so sickened by the whole thing,” he says. “Here was I, leading young men to appreciate the ways of the outdoors, and we were killing young animals.”

He switched his young archers to cardboard targets, and resolved never to kill anything again, unless to put it out of its misery. . He found he had an instinctive love of the natural world. He had worked as a male nurse (one of a variety of jobs, from the Navy to labouring) and says he knew a bit about anatomy, biology, and physiology. He has studied the internal workings of birds in much more detail since he was appointed park ranger in 1974, and now he tackles all sorts of first aid for birds and small animals. One room of his house is used as a small surgery, and ducks that would otherwise have their necks wrung are now likely to find themselves having, their hearts listened to through ' a stethoscope,

their legs sprinted, or their wounds sewn up. Birds are not the easiest patients. They are liable to keel over all of a sudden and die of shock. Jim Baggstrom begins by putting an injured bird in a warm cupboard. If it has been polluted by an oil spill, he puts it in a poncho made from an old pullover sleeve so that it cannot preen its feathers and ingest the oil. Later he will force-feed the bird with a high protein mixture to bring it back to health. . Old Charlie, a mallardmuscovy cross known as an Indian runner, is a permanent inhabitant who helps to settle the new birds down. At the moment he has three pigeons, two muscovy ducks, and five mallards for company — all recovering from injuries. Many of the ducks which he takes, home are injured in the Botanic Gardens, usually by dogs or by young vandals. But other injured wildlife is brought to him from all over the place. Word has got around that there is. a latter-day Saint Francis

living in the suburbs, and people are liable to telephone Jim Baggstrom at any hour of the day or night. Often it is motorist who has accidentally collided with a duck on the road, and feels remorseful.

Last year, he took 216 sick and injured hires under his wing, so to speak, and released 134 of them feeling much better. Of the others, 16 had to be destroyed in his ether bag, and 66 died under treatment.

Last week, his backyard recuperation ward contained an opossum which had been caught by the leg in a cruel gin trap. It is a noxious animal and would damage Jim Baggstrom’s beloved patch of bush if it got in there. But he will not' kill it, although he accepts that it may later have to be officially destroyed by someone else. “You’ve got to draw the ■■ line somewhere,” he says, “and I draw the line at killing.” So he is nursing

the opossum back to health.

His work has inspired a sympathiser in Paparua County to give him the use of five acres of land, complete with duck pond, for use as a sanctuary for sick and injured birds. Taking the ranger’s job brought Jim Baggstrom back to his childhood playground. His family home was over the road from South Hagley Park. “I know things about this

park , that were never said or written,” he says. “Back in the mystery of youth.” Hagley Park was his playground. When the wind blew branches out of the trees, he and his friends would collect the wood and sell it to their parents for threepence a bag. Washbourne Creek which flows through the south-west corner has been channelled and disciplined now, but in his childhood it was known as “Roaring Rapids-”

He continually reminds himself that the youngsters he finds yahooing around the parks and gardens are the Jim Baggstroms of more than 40 years ago. That, and his lifetime of scouting, he finds are great assets in dealing with the hordes of young people he sees through the year. He tries to convey to them — especially those he finds harassing the ducks — his own philosophy about the importance of wild things.

“I prefer education to prosecution,” he says. “If they even faintly agree that I could be right, I take that as a victory. I think the success rate is good — a lot of them come back here to see me later.” To some people the mallards and greys of the Avon River may be just a bunch of ducks, but to Jim Baggstrom they are a vital part of the "living museum” of the Botanic Gardens. Every month he walks from Fendalton

Road to the Antigua boat sheds and counts them. In the last three years their number have almost doubled — from 4645 in May, 1976, to 8950 in May last year. He makes a weekly count of banded ducks along another stretch and has found that the mortality rate' among city ducks is very high. The river banks are so steep that few ducklings survive an attack by dogs or children. They get separated from the mother, and not many reach flapper stage. It is not only ducks that the ranger, finds injured. The Botanic Gardens are home to a colony of between 12 and 20 native wood pigeons (kereru). There is also an abundance of hungry stray cats which like to chase them. The wood pigeons, become ill from the stress. Grey warblers, kingfishers, fantails, waxeyes, and a colony of little black shags also make their homes in the gardens. Last week, a white heron (kotuku) flew over

on its way to Victoria Lake. Jim Baggstrom is sure there would be even more species if Christchurch had more native bush. He has not seen a tui in the gardens for three years, although he has seen and heard bellbirds. Many would say that ducks are so numerous that it hardly seems worth the trouble putting them into “intensive care” — let alone the seagulls which he also takes in. But f-at is not Jim Baggstrom’s outlook-“No-one knows if there are more birds than people,” he says, “but we do know that birds are decreasing while people are increasing. When I was lying in intensive care after a load of grain tell on me, I was only one of zillions — why save me?” To him, a duck’s life is just as important.