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“A lot of people will miss the fact that he’s no longer with us,” she said.

When Finlay first spotted Trevor in the puddle last year, she never thought he would take up a permanent residence on the island.

Photo by Trevor the Duck-Niue / Facebook

“I’ve seen him fly,” she said. “There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with him. We had no idea why he chose to stay there, but he did.”

Despite calls for a mate to be brought in or for Trevor to be moved to a place more suitable for ducks, Finlay said the proposed solutions presented their own issues. There were concerns about introducing a second duck “to a country with no natural water source,” she said, adding that Trevor’s puddle was “only big enough for one.” Moving Trevor was also a challenge because no one knew exactly where he came from, so many argued that the best option was to leave him be, she said.

“He certainly seemed happy were he was,” she said.

Before long, Trevor was a fixture in the community. A sign was erected near his puddle that read “Niue Duck Sanctuary,” and under Trevor’s name in smaller text was a description: “The lonely only duck in Niue.”

People regularly brought food to his puddle (his favorites included cooked rice, cabbage and corn) and gave him treats whenever he would stop by their lawns, Finlay said. When the puddle looked too dry, residents and the local fire department “always came to his rescue and topped him up until it rained,” she said.

We went looking for him, and then one of the local families told us that a dog had got him

Trevor became such a constant that locals even started using him as a reference point when giving directions, Trevett wrote, recalling that when she visited the island last year, someone instructed her to “turn right after the duck.”