Calgary Checker Cab driver Urga Adunga snapped this photo of the mother duck and her ducklings riding in his back seat Thursday. Photo courtesy Checker Yellow Cabs

CALGARY, Alberta, June 15 (UPI) -- A Calgary cab driver waived the $17 fare for a mother duck and her ducklings after he gave them a lift from a busy street to the nearest river.

Checker Cab driver Urga Adunga said he was driving Thursday on a busy street when he came across a mother duck and her nine ducklings trapped in traffic.


"I didn't want to pass them because there is no way for them to escape from the road. It's blocked all the way," Adunga told CBC News.

Adunga said he put on his hazard lights and used his cab to block other vehicles from getting too close to the ducks while he and other witnesses worked to round them up.

"The other people, they are very nice people, and they stopped and they helped me get the nine ducklings," he said. "One of the people who helped me was a mother, and she had a backpack for the baby and she tried to put them in there, but we couldn't do it. So I told them to put them for me in the car."

The cabbie drove the duck family to the Bow River and waived the $17 fare. Checker Yellow Cabs shared a Facebook photo Adunga snapped of the ducks in his back seat.

"As a human it is our responsibility to protect those animals, and nature and the environment," he said. "I could do it again, too. Not only the animals, humans, too. We have to rescue each other, we have to help each other."