MotherDuck has been looking on beaches and at see from Start Point to Land’s End.
Unfortunately she didn’t find one of her ducklings yet, but she is patient...
Please let us know if you hear or see anything about those plastic ducks!

August - September 2007

MOTHERDUCK GOES TO CORNWALL

A 2.5-metre plastic duck is visiting the English coast of Cornwall. She is looking for her ducklings who are expected to make landfall on the southwest coast of England after a voyage over the great oceans.

In 1992, during a storm on the Pacific Ocean, 29,000 plastic bathtime toys – ducks –fell over board from a container ship that had left China bound for America. Via the coast of Alaska they reached the Bering Strait in 1995 and, after having withstood the rigours of the Arctic ice, ducks have been observed in the last few years on the eastern American seaboard.
Thanks to the little ducks’ adventurous journey scientists have been able to gather important data about the ocean currents.

The little yellow bath toys are now expected to make landfall in Cornwall and other beaches on the southwest coast of England.

Visual artist Marga Houtman from Warns (NL) created MotherDuck after reading a newspaper report in 2003 about the journey undertaken by
the ducklings.
Up till now MotherDuck has sought in vain for her ducklings in the Dutch waters. The announcement that the plastic ducklings are expected on the English coast one of these days was the ultimate opportunity for the mother duck to go looking for her babies there.

The expected reunion of the MotherDuck and her ducklings will be recorded in a short documentary by Marga Houtman made in collaboration with visual artist and video filmmaker Patrick Gofre. The influence of the wandering plastic ducklings on people and nature will play an important part in the film.