No more ducks should disappear off campus

You’re making your daily pilgrimage from the dorms to Dooly for that 8 AM lecture you somehow convinced yourself to take. You absent-mindedly skip songs on Pandora, dodging students that zoom by on recently-banned Swag Boards.

Out of the corner of your eye, a dark figure dashes past. Your eyes meet his. He stares you down – gaze unwavering, eyes black as night – daring you to step into his stomping grounds, where he and his squad will square up to turn you into the next questionable meat served at the dining hall.

“Who do you know here, bro?” he asks. Unable to respond, you try to walk the other way. One of his friends is already behind you. Digging your hands in your pockets, you look for something to give him to make him leave.

Maybe if you had some cash, or a credit card, or some food or –

“Dude, why are you staring at those ducks?” your classmate asks.

You wake from your daze to realize this furious frat boy is just another one of those feathered freeloaders that loiter around campus but don’t pay tuition.

Between harassing for handouts 24/7, hissing whenever someone comes too close to their territory and dropping “slipping hazards” on the sidewalks, it’s easy to see why an online search says Muscovy ducks have a “reputation of becoming nuisance pests on occasion.”

Then again, so do Miami drivers.

While the ducks on campus can be pests, they’re something we can all relate to each other about. “Birds of UM,” a Facebook page modeled off of “Humans of New York,” satires the adventures of these aggressive avians. With over 1,000 likes, the page is an inside joke among the Hurricanes.

It’s no wonder there was backlash after the university recently decided to have some ducks removed. Students questioned whether the ducks’ removal was truly over safety concerns or whether the focus was on aesthetics.

Either way, it’s clear the ducks are a school staple. Ask any UM student and they’ll tell you a memorable run-in. Between food snatchings, being followed to class or even sat next to on benches, everyone has their own story.

Most of the ducks are friendly towards people. They make good companions while we hang out around Lake Osceola and are an adorable sight to see when ducklings hatch and waddle around.

One might wonder how the ducks’ feathered friends feel about this.

It’s a well-known fact our school’s represented by a bird, too. Ask any UM student why their mascot is a not-so-intimidating duck and watch us instantly snap to correct you. “It’s not a duck, it’s an ibis,” we’ll explain, delving into the lore of the courageous wetland bird who’s the last to leave before a hurricane hits and the first to return after its retreat.

Ah, yes, bravery. That’s what we’d hope Sebastian tried to embody when tackled by FSU police in 1989. It was all in jest, John Routh – the man behind the beak – claimed after being detained for running onto the field in a fireman’s getup, flaunting a fire extinguisher.

He wasn’t actually going to extinguish Chief Osceola’s flaming spear (it wouldn’t have ruffled Miami students’ feathers if he did), but was taken seriously nonetheless.

Eventually, FSU police realized it would be dumb to arrest something that looks like a cosplay of Big Bird. However, if he had been locked up, there’s no doubt the Canes would’ve made shirts plastered with labels like “Free Sabeezy.”

Nowadays, our beloved bird is known for less-controversial antics. He leads the team through smoke at the beginning of games and riles the crowd with his C-A-N-E-S chant.

Even President Frenk’s in on the bird fad. In The Miami Hurricane’s segment “Let’s Be Frenk,” he explained that after traveling, he’d bring back wooden ducks for his kids. “I have ducks of every material you can imagine; every shape,” he said. “I was collecting ducks. Not ibises, but ducks. Maybe now I’ll start collecting ibises.”

You do you, Frenk.

As for the rest of us, the next time you’re walking to class and are accosted by a two-foot tyrant who looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but talks smack like The Rock – let it go. Let’s be grateful we’re dodging ducks instead of drivers on US-1.

Without its birds, campus would feel empty. Instead of removing the ducks, let’s remember the jokes and laughs they’ve given us – even if we have to swerve around sidewalk bombs.

After living here so many years, it’s clear the ducks have made campus their home. We should embrace them as school tradition, fighting back against removing them in the future.

And without something to distract ourselves with like taking the longer route to class to avoid the feathered fight club, we might have to do something even more terrifying, like, you know, actually study.