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he incessant “eep, eep, eep” of hundreds
of hungry flamingo chicks bounces off
the concrete walls of a feeding room at
the Southern African Foundation for the
Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB)
wildlife sanctuary in Cape Town, South
Africa. Teri Grendzinski reaches into a pen
and plucks out a fluffy, pale gray chick. The
bird opens its mouth eagerly as her syringe
squirts out a kind of warm shrimp milkshake.
It’s noisy, hot work. To keep the orphans warm, their rooms are
heated to a balmy 86 degrees Fahrenheit. And there are so many
birds, volunteers have to feed them around the clock in shifts,
mixing endless shakes and bringing in a new group of chicks
as soon as one is finished.
Scenes like this were common during the flamingo rescue
effort that took place earlier this year. “[It was] overwhelming
— in a good way,” says Grendzinski, who has raised wild birds
at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh for 25 years. “There was so
much work to be done. So much to be learned. ... And we were
running — sitting down was not an option.”
The trouble started back in January, when drought and poor
infrastructure sent water levels plummeting at a South African
reservoir called the Kamfers Dam. It’s one of just a handful of
breeding sites worldwide for the lesser flamingo, the smallest
of the six species of the leggy, pink bird.
The drought’s timing couldn’t have been worse — thousands
of chicks had just hatched. Their parents, unable to feed them-
selves, abandoned the breeding grounds, leaving their help-
less chicks behind. By the time volunteers got there, the site
was “littered with the bodies of hundreds of dead chicks,” The
Associated Press reported in February. “The cheeps of chicks
trapped inside overheating eggs [could] be heard.”
Wildlife officials stepped in. Ten local conservation groups
each agreed to take in hundreds of chicks. And organizations
around the world with experience raising flamingos, including
many zoos in the U.S., sent resources, supplies and even people
— like Grendzinski — to aid in the effort.
Now, researchers are realizing that this effort to save the birds
will also provide them with a rare chance to learn more about
this near-threatened species’ mysterious behaviors in the wild.