Morning Roundup: Ducking responsibility edition

Good morning, Houston. Speaking of problems you didn't know existed, we've got two words for you: Duck dumping. It means leaving domestic ducks in places where they shouldn't be — and it's happening at Hermann Park. People apparently decide their ducks would like to join their brethren at the park, particularly around Easter, but the domestic ducks don't mix with the wild ones that actually live in the park: The domestic ones roost on park benches, leave droppings around the park and can fall prey to other critters in the park. "There are things that will get them," Assistant Parks Director Rick Dewees told the Chronicle. "It's not a safe place for them."

>> Born on the beach: Dozens of endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles hatched in the sand on a Galveston beach Monday morning — right underneath a sign directing people to call a turtle help line. "You could see all their tracks going to the water," Tristan Cahill, who found some of the hatchlings stuck in the sand, told the AP. "By the time I got there, some of the tourists were picking them up and taking them to the water like they were pets or something." Specialists from the U.S. Fisheries Service's Galveston lab collected the hatchlings and will keep them until they're large enough to be released offshore, where there are fewer threats to their survival.

>> Minority population on the rise in Harris County: Harris County gained 121,400 minority residents between 2005 and 2006, the largest minority population increase in the country according to Census Bureau data. Breaking that increase down, Harris County had the country's second-largest increase in Hispanic population and the largest increase in black population — more than 50,000. "No other city in history has been changed as rapidly in its ethnic composition as Houston," Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg told the AP. The population of the Houston area gives a look at the near future in Texas and the ethnic makeup of America 20 years from now, Klineberg said — and the challenges the state and nation could face. "If Houston's African-American and Latino young people are unprepared to succeed in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, it's hard to envision a prosperous future for Houston," he said. "The American future is here in Houston right now."

>> Today's weather: Should be warm again, but it may not feel quite as hot as it has the last couple of days: The forecast is calling for an afternoon high of 96, with a heat index as high as 105. Tonight, look for a low around 78.

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