Svetlana Shmygol was walking along Menlo Park’s community pond late last month when she saw something that alarmed her: the pond usually inhabited by an entourage of ducks and turtles was drained and in a nearby parking lot, a turtle idled.
“I was shocked,” said Shmygol, a regular visitor to the Duck Pond who began anxiously snapping photos of the aquatic reptiles being left with little or no water. “(The) pond was empty, and turtles were just walking.”
Shmygol was witnessing Menlo Park’s annual eviction of the ducks and turtles that live in the city’s 115,000-gallon, man-made pond, which sits near city hall. The city says it temporarily relocates the pond’s aquatic life each year so that it can empty the pond and replace the green, murky water with clear water…