Mother told off for not feeding ducks granary bread

A council warden has admonished a mother for feeding white bread to ducks at her local pond on the grounds it is less healthy than wholemeal. Lisa Taplin took her two young sons to feed the birds and was told giving them white bread was akin to letting her children eat chips every day. Hailsham town council, in East Sussex, advises people not to give the ducks white bread in the belief that it harms and can even kill them.

But bird experts leapt to Taplin's defence, arguing that although bread did not do ducks much good and could leave them bloated, it did not hurt them. Taplin, a 34-year-old dance teacher, went to the Common Pond in Hailsham with sons Luke, aged four, and two-year-old Dylan. "There were loads of ducks around us and they looked quite hungry. We had about five slices of bread and we all threw bits of it towards them," she said. "The ducks fought a little over it, but they seemed to enjoy it.



"Then a man in a fluorescent waistcoat came over to me and said: 'I know you mean well, but giving them white bread is not good for them.' He said it was like giving children chips with every meal. He then said next time if I brought wholemeal, granary or birdseed that would be better for them. He walked off and made me feel slightly guilty for apparently leaving the ducks malnourished but also a bit angry at the crazy world we now live in." Taplin added: "What can be more wholesome than taking your two children to a duck pond to feed the ducks? It seems you can't do that any more without being told what to do."

Josie Appleton, of the Manifesto Club, a group that campaigns against over-regulation, said: "It is amazing that health fascism extends to the digestive system of ducks. We need to rein in the powers of fluorescent jacketed busybodies who seem to make up their own rules. As council employees, their role should be to make people's lives easier, but it seems it is to tell people what they can and can't do. Ordinary members of the public looking at this case will view that feeding bread to ducks is a normal and harmless thing to do."