Kelowna firefighters came to the rescue of several ducklings this past weekend.
The seven ducklings, according to social media posts, fell down a 15-foot storm drain on Sunday.
On its Instagram site, the fire department said “these are those heart-lifting calls we really enjoy doing. Great job Engine 1 crew, Kelowna RCMP, and City of Kelowna utility crews for rescuing these baby ducks!”
Kelowna Fire Department Captain Scott Clarke said after the call came in, crews located the storm drain on Burtch Road.
“The ducklings had gone down from one level to a lower level in the storm sewer,” said Clarke.
In fishing the ducklings out, rescue crews used a pail, poles and small nets.
“We had city utilities on standby in case we couldn’t fish them out,” said Clarke. “We were able to start off using a pail with a rope tied to it, and a couple of long pipe poles to kind of push them into the pail.”
Four ducklings were hauled up that way, and then a wildlife rehab specialist who was driving by gave the rescue crews some small nets that were used to haul up the remaining three.
“It was one of those calls where they’re not in a whole lot of danger and we were able to get at them,” said Clarke. “We didn’t want to put anybody into the hole, because it then starts taking up a lot of resources due to confined spaces.
“But it was good. It was nice to be able to get all seven of them out and reunited them with their mother. At the end of the day, it was a good call.”
Clarke added, “with what’s going on in the world, they need some good news every once in a while. There’s bad news every day and it’s just nice to have something good happen.”