By Isobel Williams via SWNS
Rising water levels threaten to flush colorful flamingos from their homes, a new study has suggested.
Huge flocks or “flamboyances” of flamingos around East Africa’s lakes have been called one of the world’s most spectacular sights, being displayed in the film “Out of Africa and David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet.”
Now, research from King’s College London suggests that this spectacular sight could be a thing of the past, as the lesser flamingo is in danger of being flushed out of its historic feeding grounds.
For the first time satellite data has been used to study all the key flamingo-feeding lakes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania over two decades—which identified how rising water levels are reducing the birds’ main food source.
The region was once home to more than three-quarters of the global population of lesser flamingos, but their numbers are declining.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, discovered that rising water levels in soda lakes are diluting their normally salty and alkaline nature, leading to a decline in flamingo’s main food source of phytoplankton.
This change was notably seen at the important tourist lake Nakuru, which has historically supported over one million birds at a time.
The lake increased in surface area by 91 percent from 2009 to 2022 whilst its mean chlorophyll-a concentrations halved.
Lead author and doctoral student Aidan Byrne said: “Lesser flamingos in East Africa are increasingly vulnerable, particularly with increased rainfall predicted for the region under climate change.
“Without improved lake monitoring and catchment management practices, the highly specialized species found in soda lake ecosystems – including lesser flamingos – could be lost.”
Without their main food source, flamingos will be forced into new unprotected areas in the search for food.
The researchers are therefore calling for coordinated conservation action across international borders, improved monitoring and more sustainable management of land surrounding important flamingo lakes.
Dr. Emma Tebbs, from King’s College London, added: “East African populations could potentially move north or south away from the equator in search of food resources. And whilst six study lakes increased in habitat suitability from 2010 to 2022, only three of those have some level of conservation protection.
“Increases in water levels could lead to lesser flamingos becoming more reliant on lakes that are unprotected, outside of current nature reserves and protected sites, which has implications for conservation and ecotourism revenues.”
