PLAGUE-HIT muscovy ducks in Buckfastleigh face an uncertain future after a team of experts declared them public enemy number one.

The damning verdict on the ravaged colony at the town's Orchard Millennium Green has come from Natural England, which says muscovies are a public health and hygiene hazard.

Its advice to the trust – which runs the private green – was not to have any there at all. No mention was made of a cull but the conservation watchdog has advised that the ratio of ducks to the area should be 'zero'.

Natural England, in a letter to the Orchard Millennium Green guardians, described the ducks as 'an invasive, non-native species which has the potential to seriously impact on our natural environment and create a public health risk'.