Organizers launch ducks into Galloway canal

 It was the Great Weiser Duck Derby fundraiser to benefit the Weiser River Animal Shelter and Rescue (WRASR). 

 The group got the green light from the Weiser Irrigation District board of directors to hold the race on the canal.

 At noon, WRASR volunteer Owen Edwards used his tractor to drop approximately 860 ducks into the canal from the bridge off W. Seventh Street.

 He was aided by the presence of the Weiser City Police to make sure all was clear to do so and that everyone was safe.

 The water’s westward flow took the small, rubber duckies about a mile to the Jenkins Creek Road bridge where volunteers, including coach Aimee Wootton’s WHS softball team, served as duck wranglers, leaning over the guard rail and snatching them up with butterfly nets. 

 It took them about 45 minutes to reach the bridge and cross the finish line.

 “We were really happy with the results,” said WRASR spokesman John Aegerter. “Everything worked fine, except at the very end, getting all the ducks in. Some of them slipped past our netting, but other than that, it went off without a hitch.”

 Participants had the opportunity to adopt a duck for a chance to win a prize. 

 The ducks were available for adoption at Ridley’s Family Market on Saturdays leading up to the race and at the Weiser Farmers Market on Thursdays.

 One duck could be purchased for $5 or five ducks for $20.

 After they had been swept up from the canal, it was announced that duck No. 423, belonging to Lori St. Peter, was the first to cross the line. Second place went to duck No. 784, owned by Linda Widner; third place to No. 619, Linda Widner; fourth to No. 085, Shelley Anderson; and fifth to duck No. 040, Meg Courter.

 The winning adopters will be notified where to pick up their prizes.

 Funds from the event will go toward the cost of developing a future homesite for an animal shelter, an effort that has been in the making for at least the past two years.

Shelter status:

 The WRASR was hoping for a zone change at the Weiser Airport, which would have allowed them to move forward with plans to occupy a vacant building on the northeast side of the property. The airport’s zone change request from A1 agricultural to D2 industrial, however, was rejected, putting a temporary halt on their plans.

 Aegerter described the status of their current effort to establish an animal shelter at the airport property.

 “It was moving slow, but now it’s gotten slower,” he said. “However, we’re not giving up on this. The requirement now is that we go through a whole new request for zoning change and that’s because now we are only going to ask to have the one and a half-acre piece that is deemed unfarmable [rezoned].

 “We have to get city council’s Ok, we have to get the airport board’s Ok, we have to get the county P&Z and county commissioners to approve it and we are not going to go into that blindfolded. We are going to do a lot of work beforehand, so we can make our presentation successful.”

 Aegerter added that the county has stiff requirements for preserving and protecting ag land.

 “I don’t want to talk as if the county is holding back on us just because,” he said. “You don’t take agricultural land out of production unless there is some very special need and we don’t qualify. The P&Z and the commissioners have simply upheld what the rules say and we didn’t have a complete understanding of all of that. That’s why we are doing a lot of research and are going to have a presentation that will answer a lot of their questions. We have good people working various parts of this and we hope that by the end of the year, we can go back into the process to get all of those approvals.”

 After numerous property searches, Aegerter noted that his group is looking at yet another property, but are in the very early stages of discovery.

 “Just last week we found another possible piece of land, but we haven’t really been able to investigate it yet because we aren’t even sure who the owners are yet and the county doesn’t have any records on it,” he said. “We are trying to find out whether that would work out.”

 He said that the property, though it is a possible option, does not come with the same advantages as the airport property or the other two properties they have looked into.

 “We haven’t talked to anybody that has any actual knowledge of this piece of land,” Aegerter said. “So, we are in the middle of doing our research on who owns it and go from there.”