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They were killed with poison at the golf course by a country club employee.

So says the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service, which on Monday announced the Chamisa Hills Country Club would be fined $1,700 for violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Several dozen ducks were found dead in September at the country club and golf course at 500 Country Club Drive, according to the agency.

After analyzing seven ducks at the Fish & Wildlife National Forensics Lab in Ashland, Ore., the federal agency concluded the birds were poisoned by strychnine.

The investigation into the deaths found that a country club employee released the poison into one of the golf course ponds, according to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife news release.

Country Club Manager Joe Long said between five and 20 ducks died, though Sheri Karmiol - a resident of the nearby Enclave community - said she saw at least 30 removed.

Long said his staff investigated the area where they keep various chemicals and noticed a bucket of rat poison was missing. The poison is used around the facility's maintenance yard to kill mice and rats, he said.

"The staff, when they were putting organic enzymes into the lakes, they think they may have grabbed the wrong bucket by mistake," Long said. "We can't prove we did it. We just know the bucket's missing. Because the bucket's missing and it's ours, it becomes our problem.

Long said there was no intention to poison the ducks.

"If we did it, it was a mistake," Long said. "We've really cracked down on labeling our products and making sure we're not picking things up by mistake."

The ducks eat the young grass sprouts that are crucial to maintaining a golf course, Long said.

So the country club has started working with Ducks Unlimited, allowing the hunting group to run dogs onto the golf course to force waterfowl back into the Rio Grande.

"By running the dogs out there, that harasses the ducks in a more humane fashion," Long said.

Karmiol expressed relief to have some conclusion to the duck deaths.

"We're gratified that the ducks will get some sort of justice," she said. "But we're also gratified that, in a way, we feel like we were exonerated."

Karmiol said many people thought neighbors were falsely accusing the country club and "making a great deal of of nothing about a couple of ducks."

"It's been a very upsetting thing for all of us," Karmiol said. "We want to be good neighbors to the golf course. We're glad that something was found out."