Duck makes headlines in Switzerland for flying at 52kmph in a 30-km zone

This handout picture released on May 14, 2025 by the Police Inspectorate (Polizeiinspektorat) of the council of Koeniz shows a duck caught by a speed radar in Koeniz, central Switzerland, on April 13. (Image credit: AFP)

A radar image of a speed offender caught in central Switzerland last month revealed that the culprit was not only a duck, but likely a repeat offender, local authorities said.

Police in the town of Koniz, near the capital Bern, were astounded when they went through radar images snapped on April 13 to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the municipality said on its Facebook page at the weekend.

The duck was caught going 52 kilometres (32 miles) an hour in a 30-km zone, the post said.

The story, first reported by the Berner Zeitung newspaper on Monday, got even stranger.

It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said.

The municipality said it had considered whether the whole thing might not be a belated April Fool's joke or a "fake" picture.

But the police inspectorate said it was impossible to doctor images or manipulate the radar system.

The computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland's Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS), and the photos taken are sealed, the municipality explained.

The last time a duck made headlines was when US-based fintech giant Stripe mistakenly sent a cartoon image of a yellow duck in layoff notifications to some employees. The image, labelled "US-Non-California Duck," was attached to termination emails as the company announced it would lay off 300 employees, or about 3.5 percent of its global workforce.

The error, confirmed by a Stripe spokesperson, occurred during the company’s internal process of notifying impacted employees. The layoffs were first reported by Business Insider and later addressed in a memo to staff by Rob McIntosh, Stripe’s Chief People Officer.

“Some impacted Stripes received a notification error to their personal email accounts,” McIntosh wrote in the memo, which was also shared with CNN. “I apologise for the error and any confusion it caused. Corrected and full notifications have since been sent to all impacted Stripes.”