SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
.
DISCOVER 59
P
A
U
L
M
C
K
E
N
Z
I
E
be a higher risk [for the birds], and that’s habitat loss and habitat
degradation.”
Lake Natron was recently under threat from a proposed
soda ash mine. Workers would extract sodium carbonate in
the lake so it could be sold as a chemical additive. (Sodium
carbonate is used to manufacture a wide range of products
from glass, to foods, to soaps.) But the project was relocated
after a years-long battle. The Kamfers Dam site saw similar
threats from a proposed housing development, and recent local
media reports say there’s a new proposal in the works to develop
adjacent to the site. Despite the flamingos’ adaptations, if a
development drained water levels or brought new pollution
that wiped out a breeding site, it would be bad news for the
dwindling birds.
Another challenge is that there’s much scientists still don’t
know about flamingos. “It’s a difficult species to work with in
the wild,” says Harebottle. “We’re going on a lot of assumption
work. Do birds that are born at the dam come back to breed at
their [birthplace]? That is unknown.”
That’s because their remote breeding locations make them
hard to study. The Kamfers Dam site is unique because it’s so
close to a major town — Kimberley — and the nesting birds are
visible from shore.
And it’s precisely this reason that made the January rescue
mission at Kamfers Dam possible in the first place. Never before
had a mass chick-abandonment been noticed with enough time
left to save the chicks.
EVERY BIRD MATTERS
When volunteers first arrived to Kamfers earlier this year, they
were met by an eerie scene. A flamingo’s nest looks like a mini
volcano made of mud and stones. And at a major breeding
ground like this, each nest is only a few feet from its closest
neighbor. The nests dotted the area by the thousands. But
instead of being surrounded by a noisy flock of parents, atop
every nest was either a single unhatched egg or a single newborn
chick, quietly struggling in discomfort.
The teams got to work. Volunteers loaded 30 chicks at a time
into small, flat cardboard boxes with air holes poked in the top.
Climate models project that some places will get wetter, while
others will be drier, so it’s a lose-lose outcome for these shallow
habitats. They “are very vulnerable to these extreme changes in
weather,” says Arengo.
And even such hardy birds can only take so much. “Now, with
climate change, these variations will become more extreme,” she
says. “And although the flamingos are adapted to having these
options, at some point, they’ll run out of options.”
That scenario has already started playing out. Shortly after the
rescue back in January, 5,000 more chicks were abandoned at
Kamfers Dam in February due to drought at a separate part of
the same site; luckily, these chicks were just old enough to make
it through on their own. On the flip side, when the water is too
high, the birds either can’t build their nests or, if the timing is
wrong, just-built nests are flooded, drowning eggs and chicks.
The latter happened in 2009 at the same location.
NEAR THREATENED
It’s not just water levels the birds have to worry about.
Populations of the microorganisms that flamingos eat can also
fluctuate dramatically in these shallow lakes, but researchers are
still figuring out why. One team that’s focusing on cyanobacte-
ria in particular suspects that outbreaks of cyanophages — or
viruses that attack the algae — could be a main culprit.
Regardless of what’s causing these fluctuations, they have a
big impact on flamingo populations. When algae populations
crash, the birds have to move on or starve. Alternatively, when
the algae experience abnormally large blooms, they can poison
the flock: Almost 44,000 dead were counted at Tanzania’s Lake
Manyara in 2004.
The nesting colonies are also susceptible to disease outbreaks.
Over 1,000 birds died of avian botulism at Kamfers in 2013.
The cause of other mass die-offs remains a mystery. After
30,000 birds died in a single week in 2008 at Lake Bogoria in
Kenya, researchers searching for cyanotoxins in the dead birds
couldn’t find any.
On top of all that, the more pressing concern is how humans
affect the birds, says Doug Harebottle, an ornithologist at
Sol Plaatje University, which is just a few miles from Kamfers
Dam. “I think there are other factors at play that could probably
The cause of other mass die-offs remains a mystery. After 30,000
birds died in a single week in 2008 at their breeding site at Lake
Bogoria in Kenya, researchers searching for cyanotoxins in the
dead birds couldn’t find any.