Credit: Screengrab via Twitter/WolfColin

Credit: Screengrab via Twitter/WolfColin
A duck at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa was recently spotted eating a chicken wing, a delicious snack meant for humans and not ducks.

A video sent to Creative Loafing clearly shows a female mallard tearing up an extremely picked-over chicken wing near the park's Carousel Circle.

While incredibly savory and paired well with beer and sports, chicken wings should not be eaten by any duck, whatsoever. Feeding water fowl junk food can actually be incredibly dangerous to their health and research has linked high calorie and low vitamin diets with a symptom called "angel wing," which causes a bird's wings to twist and point out laterally from their bodies – basically rendering them flightless.  

So, in other words, stop feeding ducks bread and especially chicken wings.  

However, if you absolutely must throw food at a duck, try things that won't kill them like bird seed, meal worms, cracked corn, and other non-junk food supplements. 

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This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 7, 2019.

Colin Wolf has been working with weekly newspapers since 2007 and has been the Digital Editor for Creative Loafing Tampa since 2019. He is also the Director of Digital Content Strategy for CL's parent...