Happy Landings, Punk

Then one day in February — poof! — Daffy disappeared. Winbarg searched all over, to no avail. She was devastated. Word spread in the neighborhood that a bunch of biker-looking dudes had snatched a dozen ducks, including Winbarg's beloved Daffy. One of the duck nabbers had left a business card at a nearby community with the name Larry Cleeson and a phone number in Starke, 350 miles north of Pembroke Pines, near the Georgia state line.

Winbarg says she called Cleeson and offered him $1,000 to return Daffy. He said he'd bring Daffy back, and Winbarg swelled with hope. Then he said he didn't have her pet. Winbarg fears that Daffy was slaughtered for his meat and served in some restaurant.

Tailpipe couldn't reach Cleeson for comment, but Keith Freeman, a licensed Muscovy farmer and trapper in Starke, says that a large drake can fetch $15 to $20 at the slaughterhouse. As a nonnative species, Muscovy ducks are not protected under state law. Catching them in the wild, he adds, is a snatch: "All you have to do is throw bread down and pick them up." But, he cautions, it's difficult to find enough ducks these days way down in South Florida without trespassing on private property. "And I wouldn't risk getting my butt thrown in jail over a damned duck."

That's little consolation for Winbarg. "I cried for three weeks," she says. She still tears up thinking about Daffy: swimming in her bathtub, following her around like a little dog, wagging his tail.

She opens her front door to bid Tailpipe farewell, and all the ducks spared by the trapper turn their beaks toward Winbarg.

"When I went out looking for Daffy," she says, glancing down at the brood, "they followed me. I'd turn around, and they'd all be right there. That's unusual. But Daffy, he would follow me to the end of the Earth."