Washington’s Department of Energy and the Environment is investigating the deaths of three ducks found near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as a wildlife rehab group plans daily checks on the birds dwelling in the algae-bloom-filled water.
It remains unclear what killed the ducks — though bright green algae has infested the iconic landmark after President Donald Trump’s recent restoration project. Forbes reported Tuesday that the algae bloom could be cyanobacteria, which is toxic to marine birds.
City Wildlife, a nonprofit animal-rehabilitation center, collected the bodies of two dead ducks on Sunday found in a nearby pond at Constitution Gardens, The Washington Post reported. Another dead duckling was seen floating dead in the Reflecting Pool, but its body was not recovered.
The rehab organization conducted necropsies — the postmortem examination of an animal’s body — on the two recovered carcasses, but City Wildlife said it cannot comment on the cause of death for the waterfowl until it has the final results.
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“City Wildlife routinely conducts necropsies on ducks found deceased on the National Mall when the cause of death is unknown,” City Wildlife wrote in a press release Tuesday, cautioning members of the public “to give the ducks plenty of space” and refrain from feeding them. The group noted that most ducklings die from predators like hawks and crows, or by drowning.
TMZ spotted workers installing a fence around the reflecting on Tuesday afternoon. National Guard members and police from area law-enforcement agencies have been patrolling the pool since the weekend.
The Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, confirmed that workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the Reflecting Pool to combat algae growth last week.
Interior did not comment on the city’s investigation, but a department spokesperson told NOTUS that hydrogen peroxide treatment had “no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, told NPR that the algae is not in itself toxic.
Christova said the algae is common during this time of year, but added that “it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”
When The Atlantic ran its own tests on the water, scientists found a type of green algae called Scenedesmus, nicknamed “Skinny Dead Mouse,” flourishing in the pool. The bright-green genus began to thrive after the hydrogen peroxide treatment killed off the initial blue-green cyanobacterial bloom, according to the magazine.
Trump has blamed vandalism for the current condition of the Reflecting Pool, with its peeling paint and a green algae bloom wrecking his much-hyped $14 million renovation. The Trump administration awarded Atlantic Industrial Coatings a no-bid contract in April to resurface the pool with his color choice, “American flag blue.”
Six people have been arrested and an additional seven have been cited for allegedly vandalizing or damaging the pool’s new paint job, the president announced Tuesday on social media.
“We will drain some of the water, either immediately before or after the Fourth of July, to do the permanent repair,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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