The Ducks Can Stay: Fair Haven Council Ruled the Pets Can Continue to Flock on South Woodland Drive

“The ducks are here for now,” said the Mayor of Fair Haven, Michael Halfacre. “With Conditions,” he added. 

12-year-old Nikki Vuille and her mother, Dawn Stover, came before the Fair Haven Borough Council to ask for an exception to the non-domestic animals ordinance. They wanted the council to allow them to keep 6 ducks that they hatched and raised since their birth 6 months ago in a shed and pen in their backyard on South Woodland Dr.

Their request was granted at last night’s council meeting. After a short discussion, the council decided to allow the ducks to stay as long as they promised to follow through with specific conditions.

At the meeting last night, no neighbors spoke out against the ducks. One neighbor, however, did speak on behalf of them. “I’ve seen a couple different shows about unusual pets and as a matter of fact, if you come into my home, you will see my turtle,” said Susan O’Brian. “So I don’t think ducks are that out of the question.”

At the first meeting, there were a handful of angry neighbors protesting the ducks. In addition to the public protest, the council first became aware of the ducks through multiple written complaints from neighbors surrounding the Stover's home. The letters brought three main concerns to the council: the structure that the ducks live in, the disposal of concentrated duck feces and the biggest concern of quacking.

The “conditions” that the Stover family will have to abide by will address all of those concerns. The mayor and council listed over half-dozen rules including;

• The family must create proper screening to hide the enclosure from the eyesight of the neighbors.
• They must clean the cage everyday.
• They must remove the food from the cage each night and keep it in air-tight containers to prevent from attracting rodents.
• All the ducks must prove to have clean bills of health.
• The family must remove the eggs from the pen each night to prevent procreation and they are not allowed to sell the duck eggs for profit.
• Ducks must be kept in their shed and pen to avoid contact with other wild animals.
• Shed and pen must be approved by the zoning board.
• The family can only keep the six original ducks. “No replacements,” said Mayor Hafacre. "I am treating this like an anomaly. Once the ducks are gone, they are gone."

The council plans to take the next two weeks to talk to the South Woodland Dr. neighbors to make sure that they did not miss any conditions. They will then come up with a final draft and put their decision into a resolution at the next meeting on April 25.

The borough lawyer, Salvatore Alfieri, reminded the council that a decision is not necessarily permanent.  "The ordinance says that if they grant permission, and the family does not comply with the conditions, the neighbors can bring the issue back and get it reversed," he said. The family will have 30 days to comply with the conditions drafted by the council.

The smile on Vuille’s face gave a happy ending to the story after the previous meeting when she left in tears. It was clear that she was thrilled to have permission to keep all 6 ducks or her “family” together.