WESTBROOK – A cardboard box containing a dozen wild duck eggs and the nesting mother, situated on a busy strip off Main Street in Westbrook at the Bank of America sidewalk on Friday, has gone missing.
According to Phil Hebert, the animal control officer with the Westbrook Police Department, it is a federal violation to handle and remove the eggs, and they are searching for leads as to where the eggs were taken.
“I suspect the tampering violation would come with a heavy fine,” Hebert said.
Stacy Symbol, a Westbrook resident, said she was heading into work on Friday morning when she first discovered the eggs on the sidewalk.
“She must have been a first-time mother. The nest was loose. It was bad. One egg had rolled out of the nest and off the sidewalk,” Symbol said.
Symbol called Hebert, and throughout the course of the day, she continued to check on the mother and her eggs. First, she said, she noticed someone had built a cardboard box “condominium” for the duck, complete with a door and a viewing area from above so anyone walking by could still see what was going on inside. When Symbol looked, the mother duck was not inside or nearby.
The next time she checked, the condominium was gone, replaced by a simple cardboard box. Inside was the mother and her 12 eggs. Surrounding the box were two sawhorses and a sign taped to a light pole nearby warning residents the duck was there and to not touch her.
“We had posted that [sign] and put barricades up Friday,” said Hebert. “I posted the sign that the mother duck was sitting on eggs and to please leave them alone per the animal control officer’s request. I came in and found her in a box. I did not put her in the box. That would mean handling them [the eggs] and that is not good. The mother could have abandoned them. After talking with Dave Sparks [an animal rehabilitator and owner of Sparks Ark] we figured we would see what would happen and let nature take its course,” Hebert said Wednesday.
Symbol continued to check on the mother duck throughout the weekend, and at of the end of her workday Monday, the duck was fine. But on Tuesday morning, she received a call from her husband telling her the ducks were missing.
“It’s sickening,” she said.
Spring is typically the time when ducks lay their eggs. Hebert said he’s received more calls than usual, at least half a dozen so far, about ducks laying their eggs in unsafe areas.
“A lot of people can’t help themselves, but if there’s a nest, just leave it alone. Don’t stand around, don’t bother the mother duck. If she’s bothered enough she would walk away and not come back,” Hebert said.
Normally, Hebert does not mark off an area where a duck has made a nest, but because this particular duck had nested in such a busy area, he felt the need to so no one would bother her or the eggs.
Hebert said once a duck lays her full clutch, or all of her eggs, which can happen during the course of a few days, it will be about 28 days until those eggs hatch.
A mother duck sits on her eggs Friday in her precariously placed nest by the Bank of America sidewalk in downtown Westbrook. At some point, she and the eggs were placed in a cardboard box. By Tuesday, the box was gone. 
Barricades put up by Phil Hebert, animal control officer with the Westbrook Police Department, were meant to protect a nesting mother duck and her eggs. The box was gone on Tuesday. Staff photo by Suzanne Hodgson
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