Yellowknife (Jun 09/06) - A Yellowknife resident says a city goof-up is leaving Frame Lake ducks and eggs high and dry and turning them into sitting ducks, literally.

Francis Chang crouches down near a pond where ducks come to nest every summer. He said the city put the birds at risk after failing to shut down a sluice gate draining the lake. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Francis Chang said he runs regularly past a small pond next to the Yellowknife Visitor's Centre and has noticed it was getting smaller and smaller.

The pond is home to a large number of nesting ducks come spring. It's connected to Frame Lake through a culvert. A sluice gate on the culvert is used to regulate water flow. The pond drains into Niven Lake, which flows via a creek into Back Bay.

Earlier this spring the Frame Lake trail flooded, so the sluice gate was opened to allow the excess run-off to drain, said Chang.

"So (the city) opened it up to drain the water out and now they've left it open," said Chang.

"Now the lake by the visitor's centre is almost empty, and the (ducks) are sitting on a big hump. It's never been that low ever.

"They're going to be more accessible to foxes and whatnot."

Chang said he was contacted by a City Hall employee Wednesday to "alleviate" his concerns, and assure him the sluice gate had been shut.

But Chang said problems with the gate seem to becoming a yearly occurrence. Either City Hall forgets to open the gate and trail floods or it forgets to close it, leaving the ducks in a shallow puddle with little protection from predators.

"They forgot to open it last fall so it flooded," said Chang. "Now they forgot to close it."

Steve Allan, a wildlife officer with the Canadian Wildlife Service, told Yellowknifer Wednesday that he planned to take a look for himself.

He said disturbing or destroying duck habitat can be either a summary or indictable offence. A summary conviction carries a maximum $300,000 fine or six months in jail, while the maximum fine for an indictable offence is $1 million.

"(The Migratory Birds Convention Act) basically says that no one shall disturb, destroy any eggs or nest of any migratory bird," said Allan.

Phone calls to City Hall were not returned.