Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes
Meet the Harlequin
Canada’s most threatened duck walks under water, migrates like a salmon and takes on the roughest waters to sustain biodiversity…and its story begins with a 16th Century Italian clown? Obviously.
Love sixteenth century Italian comedy? Thought so. How can you not love the iconic Harlequin, with his bright, colourful clothing and that signature dark mask? The original clown, with a romantic twist.
Okay, maybe, like me, you’re not up on your sixteenth century Italian comedy, but here’s why it’s interesting:
The Harlequin did more than inspire a Winnipeg publishing company to create the famed book genre – the Harlequin romance – it also inspired the name for Canada’s most threatened species of duck, the colourful – and, yes, even romantic – harlequin.
The sixteenth century character, always a male, and the drake, a male harlequin duck, do look similar. And the harlequin is a romantic bird, loyal to their partner.
But the similarities end there.
This duck is no joke – fierce females are the ones who drive this species’ plot line. Wintering in the roughest corners of our coastline, the females choose their mates and then lead them up rivers, just like salmon, to the same breeding spot each year.
Their chosen location? It’s not some serene mountain stream. It’s a rough stretch of rapids – or even a waterfall.
In fact, choppy waters – salt or fresh water – is the advantage harlequins have over their predators, be it mink or raptors. Under threat? They take cover in a place where no predator – no human – would dare venture.
The fact that their default security blanket is water rather than flight – and the fact that they migrate west and east, rather than north and south – makes them a true odd duck.
Being so unlike the average duck puzzles and fascinates researchers. Well, that and the fact they literally walk along the bottom of a rough river to find food like you and me might stroll Vancouver’s Stanley Park seawall on the calmest of summer days.
But just because they’re extreme adventure types, doesn’t mean they don’t have a sensitive side.
Years of overhunting, pollution and oil spills in the ocean, dams and rivers full of silt brought on by erosion from logging, and even people fishing and kayaking can be enough to displace a harlequin. Even if it’s temporary, it can halt reproduction of one of the slowest reproducing ducks in the world.
This is why they’re threatened on the east coast and have a declining population in the west.
Who cares?
Well, here’s the thing:
There are over 25 species of ducks that call Canada home. In North America, combining all species, ducks number over 45 million – a number that’s never been higher. But each species? They serve a purpose.
You see, each type of duck has a uniquely shaped bill that enables them to eat different types of invertebrates. Each invertebrate, of course, serves its own purpose, but if, say, an insect population gets out of whack because there are too few ducks to eat them, then that’s how an infestation starts.
