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was properly functioning, we could ensure enough water in the
lake, independent of rainfall,” Anderson says.
Once the flamingos were grown, the work of the volunteers
caring for the birds came to an end. The surviving 700 or so
birds were packed up and flown back to Kimberley to prepare
for their release back into the wild. The birds were quaran-
tined to make sure they’d be well enough for the transition
and banded with a big yellow anklet so researchers can keep
an eye on them from afar. Then, a few at a time, they were
released to rejoin the rest of their old flock.
Harebottle was there when the first 50 birds were released
in early May. It was a test run of sorts, to see what would
happen when the holding pen was opened for the first time.
Would the captive-reared birds rejoin the flock? Or would
they be imprinted on the humans?
“I think everybody had a big smile on their face when the
birds were released,” says Harebottle. The bird pioneers split
into three groups. A few poked around, looking for food near
the release pen. Another group flew off into the distance. But
the last group joined the flock.
“I think that was a really good sign,” says Harebottle. “It
was the sign that maybe, there’s a very good chance, that what
we’re doing is going to work.”
The next morning, Harebottle says, things got even better.
When a volunteer birder went to check on the flamingos, she
counted 41 yellow bands on the edge of the Kamfers flock.
The rest of the birds were released in regular intervals over
the course of the next few weeks. Volunteers are now keeping
an eye on the yellow-banded birds, while researchers track 20
of them with location-tracking GPS backpacks.
This information will be unprecedented, and could start to
answer important questions about the lives of lesser flamingos
both at Kamfers and more broadly. Researchers will be able
to learn about the birds’ movement patterns and how flexible
they really are as their breeding sites wax and wane.
Most of all, conservationists hope the next breeding season
will be more kind to these birds. Not too wet, not too dry —
just right for a new crew of cute, floofy chicks to drink real
crop milk from their parents.
D
Anna Groves is assistant editor at Discover.
These were transported by truck and eventually airplane to the
different rescue centers across South Africa.
“Every bird matters for the survival of this species,” says Pilar Fish,
director of veterinary medicine at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh.
The steps the team at SANCCOB took were also crucial to
the mission’s success: Each chick was outfitted with a microchip
with a unique identifier. And before every feeding, each bird
was scanned and weighed to ensure it was given the correct
amount of formula that would keep it growing at just the right
rate — about 10 percent of its body weight each day.
In the wild, these chicks would be eating crop milk. That’s a
thick, protein-rich substance made in an organ — the crop —
inside their parents and regurgitated to feed the young.
But at the flamingo rescue center, that task fell to a kitchen
staffed with volunteers who blended concoctions of their own:
hard-boiled egg yolks, fish, prawns, shrimp and extra vitamins.
These were then loaded into hundreds of syringes, ready to pop
into hungry flamingo mouths.
On top of the hundreds of shrimpshakes administered each
day, there was an absurd amount of cleaning to do: Every chick
was cleaned after being fed, and every pen was cleaned after
each round of feeding.
And, since the hatchlings were to be released back into the
wild once they became self-sufficient, the volunteers had to
take extra steps to prevent the birds from imprinting on them.
They wore black gloves, pink compression sleeves, and pink
T-shirts as they fed the chicks to try to mimic the colors of a
flamingo parent.
HOPE FOR THE LESSER FLAMINGO?
Volunteers describe this year’s rescue as a fluke event. Leaky
pipes and broken pump stations plagued an attached wastewater
treatment plant during a drought this year. That cut the birds
off from their water source and starved them of food. And all
of that happened at exactly the wrong time — just after chicks
hatched, but before they could take care of themselves.
Despite this year’s struggles, Mark Anderson, the
CEO of BirdLife South Africa who coordinated the
effort, is optimistic about the future of the Kamfers
Dam breeding site. The infrastructure problems are now being
fixed, he says, so the water supply should remain more consis-
tent for future flamingos. “If the wastewater treatment works
Researchers will be able to learn about the birds’ movement
patterns and how flexible they really are as their breeding
sites wax and wane.