The NY Times reports the following: "This guy's the champion," said Patricia Brennan, a behavioral ecologist, leaning over the nether regions of a duck - a Meller's duck from Madagascar, to be specific - and carefully coaxing out his phallus" It was just such behavior that caused fellow ducks to quack in their boots and call the ASPSCA, the sexual cruelty branch of the ASPCA.
More of the Times Duckrotica that outraged readers: "The duck was quietly resting upside-down against the stomach of Ian Gereg, an aviculturist here at the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Sanctuary. Dr. Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University and the University of Sheffield, visits the sanctuary every two weeks to measure the phalluses of six species of ducks"
Animal defenders are branding this behavior as mass molestation."This woman is only about embarrassing waterfowl. Why doesn't she stay home and measure her mate if she can find one! Listen to her cruel innuendos:
"When she first visited in January, the phalluses were the size of rice grains. Now many of them are growing rapidly. The champion phallus from this Meller's duck is a long, spiraling tentacle. Some ducks grow phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring"
Duck sex abuse advocacy group Leave our Duck Dicks Alone(LODDA) is outraged by what it calls: "The purely prurient interest of a sick human. . . The perverted attention to detail and the insulting focus on our genitalia is unconscionable!" LODDA cites the following NY Times passage:
"The anatomy of ducks is especially bizarre considering that 97 percent of all bird species have no phallus at all. Most male birds just deliver their sperm through an opening. Dr. Brennan is investigating how this sexual wonder of the world came to be"
LODDA found further offense in the insistence that females also be subjected to derision:
"Part of the answer, she has discovered, has gone overlooked for decades. Male ducks may have such extreme genitals because the females do too"
LODDA spokesperson, Daffy Donald Aflack protests the research and the NY Times article: "If anyone wrote so provocatively about human male phalluses and human female downtheres, there would be hell to pay. Who will stand up for the Ducks?!"