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Animal Control Officer Saves 11 Ducklings from Storm Drain by Playing Duck Sounds on Her Phone

Hayward Police Department/Facebook

A California animal control officer's clever thinking saved a group of baby ducklings.

Earlier this week, a mama duck and her 12 offspring were walking around a college campus when 11 of the ducklings fell into a storm drain, according to a social media post from the Hayward Police Department.

After losing her children, the mama duck began to quack loudly, the police department said, which garnered the attention of someone walking past.

Chabot College's maintenance and operations staff removed the grate from the storm drain to get access to the baby animals, but the little birds had moved too far into the pipes to be pulled out.

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Hayward Police Department/Facebook

According to the police department, Hayward Animal Control officer Susan Perez — who has prior experience rescuing animals from storm drains — was called to the scene to help. She used her cell phone to play "mama duck sounds" to draw the animals towards her, after which she was able to safely remove the babies from the storm drain and reunite them with their mother.

Many praised the officer's heroic and quick actions in the comments section of the police department's post.

"Love Officer Perez's ingenuity!" said one user as another added, "Hero!!!! Glad mama got her babies back."

Meanwhile, another social media user shared that they similarly were able to achieve the same feat on another occasion. "It took a while to coax out all of them, but it worked!!" they said.