The current season of Masterchef has come to a crashing halt after Spatch, a bottle washer from an Aylesbury Gastropub, used Britain’s last duck.

He served it with a plum jus, heritage carrots and a celeriac mash. Unfortunately for Spatch, he failed to render his duck fat, or to allow the poor fellow a sufficient rest, and home he went. Spatch says he’s glad to have gone on this journey. Unfortunately, the duck cannot say the same.

Conservationists first raised the alarm in 2016, when cooking duck with a fruit jus became fashionable. Since then Masterchef contestants, and viewers, have fried, roasted and sauteed over 3 million ducks, decimating the Chinese food industry in the process.

One estimation is that 90% of all dishes cooked on Masterchef are ruddy ducks. What is most surprising is how little variety there is between the dishes. In fact, they are so similar that the judges have run out of meaningless superlatives with which to describe them.

“Thank God for that,” said one judge.

If I see another bloody duck, I’ll scream. In every round there is some burger flipper from Runcorn presenting me with a piece of duck that they put in a pan for three minutes and left to drain on an old dishcloth. They are so proud of their ‘unique’ creation that it seems a shame to tell them it tastes like something you’d not bother giving to the cat. I hate the damn things.

Greggs A Wally, Professional Mockney

Waitrose shares fell sharply on the news.