01907 Winter 2023

8 | 01907
Cheerio the duck, held by
caregiver Steven Thibeault.
CHEERIO, continued from page 7
In a matter of days, the man-duck
duo became inseparable. Thibeault took
Cheerio to work each day, letting the
duck swim in the pool, or on the shores
surrounding the peninsula at Bass Point.
When it was time to leave, Thibeault
would simply whistle, and Cheerio would
fly into his car.
It didn’t take long for Cheerio to waddle
his way into the spotlight. In 2018, the
duck spent a day as a Nahant Police officer
under the care of officer Timothy Furlong,
now the department’s chief. In 2020,
Cheerio became the first-ever non-human
to be in-duck-ted as a Nahant Historical
Society lifetime member. Later that year,
Essex Media Group named Cheerio as its
Nahant Person of the Year.
One day, Thibeault brought Cheerio
to his parents’ house in Malden, and the
duck flew away through an open door.
Thibeault said he spent hours searching
for the Cheerio, but returned to Nahant
heartbroken after having lost his waterfowl
companion.
“I went to Malden a couple times and
went to a bunch of reservoirs. I searched
high and low but I couldn't find him. The
next day I go to work, I'm depressed and
crying,” Thibeault said.
Later that day, Thibeault received a
phone call from a Bass Point tenant
informing him that he saw Cheerio at
Long Beach. When Thibeault arrived and
saw a duck socializing with people on a
crowded beach, he knew instantly that it
was his duck.
“The ranger there asked ‘Is he your
duck?’ and I was like, ‘yeah.’ He said ‘We
just called some biologists because we
wanted to figure out why this duck is so
friendly,’ ” Tibeault said. “Imagine having
a baby that can fly after four months. Your
baby can just take off out of its crib and
go ‘I'm out of here’ and fly. That’s what it’s
like being a duck dad.”
CHEERIO, continued on page 10
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