We're staying the The Peabody in Orlando. This hotel has a schtick: ducks. There are Peabody hotels in Orlando, Memphis and Little Rock, and they all have the duck thing. At eleven in the morning, a person bearing the job title of "Duckmaster" leads five ducks from their upstairs apartments (which consist of a glass enclosed fountain) down to the lobby fountain, and leads them back up again at five o'clock. (I do not know how the Duckmaster spends the intervening time; we sat for about an hour in the lobby with the ducks this afternoon, and the Duckmaster was absent.
The ducks spend their days alternately sleeping, eating, bathing in the cascades and crapping on the fountain. (Every fifteen minutes or so, some poor soul employed by the hotel comes by and scrubs any new duck poo off the fountain, presumably in order to avoid any unfortunate public health issues.)
As a fan of animals, my first thought was whether this was good for the ducks. Frankly, it's hard to see how these ducks are oppressed in any meaningful way. Yes, they don't spend their time on natural lakes outside, living normal duckly lives and getting hunted by predators, but I'm unconvinced that this bothers them. These birds have better living quarters than most people. I'm open to changing my mind, but I haven't any reason to do so yet.
Update: I heard from some ladies at the glass-enclosed Royal Duck Palace (the ducks' evening abode) that the hotel has three "teams" of ducks that rotate from a duck farm to the hotel, thus ensuring that no team of ducks spends too much time at the hotel. The ladies said they got this information from the Duckmaster.
I got some "eh" quality video of the duck march late this afternoon. I'm going to video the morning march, and I'll post whichever video's better.
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