Corsham pensioner told not to feed ducks (From This Is Wiltshire)

Corsham pensioner told not to feed ducks

10:36am Thursday 25th June 2009

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Pensioner Harry Metcalf, who every day for the last ten years has fed the ducks at Pockeridge Lakes, Corsham, was devastated when he was banned from throwing bread by anglers who feared he was poisoning the fish.

The 70-year-old, of Poynder Road, Corsham says feeding the ducks is his one pleasure in life and denies he has been turning up with huge quantities of bread.

He said: “I walk a five mile round trip every morning sometimes with my ten-year-old Labrador Emma if she is feeling up to it and I just love seeing the ducks and geese around the three lakes near Basil Hill Barracks.

“They all know me so well now that they come up to me and wait there ready for food so I was really upset when a warden told me I had to stop feeding the ducks as I was poisoning the fish. I think especially during the winter months the ducks might die waiting for food if I don’t give them it.”

While walking last weekend, he was approached by a volunteer from the club who acts as a bailiff, and told to stop feeding the ducks in the three lakes that Chippenham Angling Club rents from Katherine Park estate developers.

Simon Wade, secretary of Chippenham Angling Club, said: “We have got absolutely no problem with people feeding the ducks because it is an area for everyone but we have had reports of Mr Metcalf coming down on a regular basis with several bin liners full of sandwiches.

“He is chucking them on the lakes which is not only attracting rats but altering the algae and oxygen levels in the water and, as the oxygen levels lower, the fish die.

“We had to close the lake for two weeks from June 1 to let the algae levels improve and we have had the Environment Agency here to check them.”

Mr Metcalf used to get left over crusts from Munchies on Park Lane industrial estate where his daughter Denise works as a driver but after several requests Mr Wade has written to the business asking them not to give the pensioner bread.

The sandwich shop owner Dawn Gooderson said: “We have stopped giving Mr Metcalf crusts each day now because we got a letter from the angling club requesting us not to and we would rather not be causing any problems.”

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