Photo by Derek Foote
The 15th Wimborne in Bloom August Bank Holiday weekend Duck Race raised over £1,500 towards ‘In Bloom’ funds and the autumn planting.
The Deputy Mayor and Mayoress Councillor Shane and Mrs Tracy Bartlett along with members of the Wimborne in Bloom Committee launched the ducks into the river Allen by the Riverside Mews Café Bridge on Saturday 23 August. It took around 20 minutes for the first duck to cross the finishing line at the Rising Sun car park with the stragglers taking 30 minutes.
A thousand ducks took part in the race with some being co-owened because of demand.
The winning ducks were owned by: 1 Anne Norman: 2 Clare Fallon: 3 co-owned Val Cooper and Canford Drains: 4 Norma Aitchison.
Richard Nunn, chairman of Wimborne in Bloom said: “In the light of the recent publicity regarding a fungal disease known as ‘crayfish plague’ threatening the white-clawed crayfish in the river Allen we sought advice from Dorset Wildlife Trust about running the Duck Race.
“In turn DWT conferred with the Environment Agency and between them agreed that the duck race could go ahead providing we followed their guidelines. These included remaining vigilant and observing biosecurity procedures such as ensuring that any equipment including shoes/boots were clean and dry before entering the river and cleaned off afterwards”.
