MARS — A quack attack that has both plagued and entertained borough residents, businesses, motorists, police and even a senior citizen high-rise will finally waddle to an end soon.

The story began on Arch Street, where former borough councilwoman Patti Marburger said a resident in the spring began raising a pair of ducks, then stopped feeding them.

The pair moved on to the creek along Pittsburgh Street, where caring residents of Penn-Mar and St. John adopted them and shared their bread and crackers.

Faster than you can say “Anaheim Ducks,” a huge dynasty consisting of several dozen ducks descended to share in the free grub.

They mainly congregated in the culvert pools in front of the two senior citizen buildings, but when “dirt” from the avian army began showing up on the carpets at Penn-Mar and St. John, the hungry fowl quickly changed from a cute distraction to the enemy.

“Don’t feed the ducks” signs soon appeared.

After the bread stopped flying at those two buildings, the pack began roaming in search of food.

“They just kind of walk in front of our door and hold up traffic and stand around the gas pumps,” said Kattie Bordt, manager of the nearby Planet Mart convenience store. “One day I counted 37 ducks. Some of our customers have thrown bread out the window to get them to move out from under their trucks and stuff.”

She said the ducks appeared largely unfazed by humans and vehicles and nonchalantly waddle away if approached.

Kylie Feldbauer, 12, of Penn Township came in contact with the mainly mallards on Oct. 13 at Penn-Mar Plaza, where her grandmother’s 70th birthday party was held.

When she and her cousins became restless and wandered outside, they noticed a single duck in the parking lot. Kylie began lobbing pilfered pastries at the lucky duck, who was soon joined by his cohorts.

“More little ducks just started coming over,” Kylie recalled. “We ended up with about 50 of them there. We were all just feeding them.”

Kylie’s mother, Mary, remembered that someone inside pointed out the large flock and the merry sight of the children tossing chunks of bread.

“My mother said ‘Oh my, you’re not supposed to feed those ducks!’” Mary Feldbauer recalled.

The children were warned and the feeding stopped, which was fine with Kylie.

“They made this really annoying noise,” she said, “but the party was more fun because of the ducks. They were very friendly.”

Police Chief Kevin Radford said he and his officers have spent time since the spring shooing the ever-increasing number of winged invaders off the road to clear the way for traffic. He said six or eight have met a grim fate on Pittsburgh Street.

“That’s why the rest are in the duck witness relocation program,” Radford joked. “They witnessed the murders.”

Randy Pilarcik, a state game commission wildlife conservation officer, said the situation was caused by the good intentions of the borough’s animal lovers.

“Artificial feeding brought them in and kept them there,” Pilarcik said.

He said ducks normally eat corn that trickles onto fields being harvested, new shoots of grass and insects or aquatic vegetation in waterways. But if the rather lazy creatures can be sustained by the kindness of strangers, they will take advantage of it.

“Whatever they can do to get the most nutrients while expending the least energy, that’s what they’ll choose,” Pilarcik said. “It’s easier to swim up (the creek), then walk to wherever the feed is.”

He has no doubt the easily domesticated mallards will readjust to life as wild ducks once they are relocated to a remote area with a pond or lake.

“With any wildlife, artificial feeding does create problems,” Pilarcik said. “There’s plenty of natural feed around.”

He said the wildlife rescue company will likely use large fishing nets to catch the birds, which will be made easier by their acclimation to humans over their summer in Mars.

The birds will then be placed in special cardboard boxes and moved unharmed to their new home, which will likely be in the northwestern part of the state.

Pilarcik discourages any feeding of wild animals, including a marauding pack of ducks.

“They’ve all survived before without us,” he said.