USF ducks sit on Castor Beach quacking in support of their expanded beach lodge. ORACLE GRAPHIC/THOMAS MARRS
USF’s campus ducks are often the target of a lot of publicity on campus, from student organizations to incoming freshmen.
USF departments love making Instagram Reels about the ducks, while freshmen love taking photos of them with their first cameras to post on Reddit.
Even the USF Student Government has approved a resolution to install duck-crossing signs across campus to prevent them from becoming roadkill. Everyone on campus loves the ducks.
However, the ducks on campus don’t care about Instagram, Reddit or duck crossing signs.
So, they drafted a new proposal for the USF administration to review, demanding more space on Castor Beach.
Ana Tidae, Tampa Bay’s first — and probably only — duck scientist and translator, said she is helping the ducks draft a petition for a Castor Beach expansion project.
“I can understand them perfectly,” Tidae said. “Just like how you can tell when a dog wants dinner, or a cat wants to be pet. I can tell these ducks want more Castor Beach.”
With the help of Tidae’s translation abilities, I interviewed the American Pekin duck brothers who live in the pond at USF’s Simmons Park — who are allegedly the brains behind this project.
“We’re sick and tired of this pond,” the left brother said, translated by Tidae. “All the ducks at Castor get to eat the food that people leave behind from Argos Exchange. We just get cucumbers from Juniper Dining every once in a while.”
Related: SATIRE: USF student disappears after saying he will skip class once and never again
Still, Tidae said the Castor Beach ducks are also asking for more space. Charles Duckins, a Muscovy duck, is in full support of the petition.
“More space on Castor Beach would mean that we can get further away from couples disgustingly making out on the hammocks,” Duckins said.
The American Pekin at Simmons Park said Castor Beach has more “human diversity.”
“At Simmons Park, we only see the freshmen who live at Juniper-Poplar Hall,” the right brother said. “Or weird psychology students crossing the bridge to get to class buildings. Either way, the lack of diversity is annoying.”
Some ducks choose to live in parking garages on campus. When asked how pond ducks feel about them, the Pekin brothers and Duckins shared the same sentiment.
“Those ducks are literally stupid,” Duckins said. “We have multiple huge bodies of water all over campus, and they choose to hang out in a parking garage puddle.”
The Pekin brothers agreed, saying that the parking garage ducks are drawing attention away from their cause.
“SG is only focused on the duck crossing signs because of the mother-duckers that don’t leave the parking garage,” the left brother said. “If they would just go to a pond like a normal duck, they wouldn’t get run over.”
Related: SATIRE: Why USF should have less parking
Tidae said she fully supports her “duck friends” on their activism and will continue to translate for them whenever they need her to.
“I provide a voice for the voiceless,” Tidae said. “As long as these ducks keep waddling, I will translate their quacks.”
The ducks and Tidae plan to speak before SG soon.
USF ducks said that, depending on SG’s response, this moment could be historic for Tampa Bay and Florida — or Tidae will be known as the biggest quack on campus.