Police officers rescue ducklings that fell through sewer grate in Massapequa

Four baby ducklings that had fallen through a sewer grate in Massapequa were lured Saturday to safety by police officers who played mother duck calls that were on YouTube to lure the birds to safety and their real mother, according to the Nassau County Police Department.

The ducklings were reunited with the mother, the department wrote in a news release.

The “unusual incident,” as the episode was described in the release, unfolded around 11:18 a.m. following a 911 call. The report described an agitated mother duck dangerously walking into traffic on Old Sunrise Highway because the ducklings had fallen through the grate, about 8 feet down.

Officers who arrived heard but could not see them. The grate couldn’t be removed immediately. So officers “worked together and traced the paths of the sewer systems to a nearby reservoir where they could still [hear] the ducklings in distress,” the release said. The officers then played the YouTube “mother duck calls in order to lure the ducklings to the opening and all four responded, waddling . . . [their] way to safety. Officers cleaned them up and reunited the ducklings with their mother in a nearby creek.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.