OGDEN — When no one official would step in to rescue six stranded ducklings, Monica Robinson answered the call herself.

The Ogden resident noticed a mother duck and one offspring circling the street outside her house. She walked outside to see why the bird was so distressed and found six ducklings trapped in a storm drain outside her home Sunday morning. And if it weren't for the determined animal lover, the babies wouldn't have been reunited with their mother.

"I called the city, but everyone said they weren't going to drop everything for some ducks," Robinson said.

Her property manager told her the storm drain grate was welded shut and that she was not about to foot the bill to remove it for a few little ducks. But she did recommend Robinson contact a Utah wildlife management employee who lived around the corner.

So she sought out his help, but she said he told her the chances of the baby ducks surviving to adulthood were slim anyway and to just let them go.

"But I gave him that look that said, 'No, that is not going to happen,' " Robinson said.

She then called Critter Control for professional intervention. The company wanted to charge $95 for a residential visit, even though the animals weren't her pets. She said, "No, thanks."

The Ogden City Animal Shelter gets calls about ducks in storm drains all of the time, especially during the freak rainstorms this summer, said spokeswoman Casy Beesly. But she acknowledged that there are policy differences between domestic animals and wildlife. Puppies and kittens are a higher priority.

"We're short-staffed," Beesly said.

The Utah Division of Wildlife also said ducks in storm drains are lower on their to-do list, said Phil Douglas, the division's northern region wildlife outreach coordinator.

"I'm just frustrated that no one wanted to help," Robinson said.

With no one left to turn to, Robinson straightened out a wire hanger, hung a net of fabric on the end and tried to scoop out the ducklings. It didn't work. So in a last-ditch effort, she called her mother, Jana Petersen, who also lives in Ogden. The two of them decided to try to lift the storm drain's grate. It turns out it wasn't welded shut after all.

Robinson crawled into the drain, scooped up the ducklings and kept them in a cardboard box in her backyard until the mother duck returned to fetch her wayward brood.

E-mail: mmcfall@desnews.com