The birds
are being hand-reared by volunteers as months of dry weather threatens breeding
ground
Guardian
staff and agencies
Thu 7 Feb
2019 02.49 GMTLast modified on Thu 7 Feb 2019 10.27 GMT
Under
warming red light at a rescue centre in Cape Town baby flamingos are fed,
weighed and cared for. The chicks are among 2,000 that were rescued after they
were abandoned by their parents as dam waters dried up in South
Africa.
A special
airlift for thousands of baby flamingos is under way in South Africaas drought has put
their breeding ground in peril, with a reservoir that hosts one of southern
Africa’s largest flamingo populations drying up.
Nicky
Stander, rehabilitation manager at the Southern African Foundation for the
Conservation of Coastal Birds in
Cape Town (SANCCOB), said her team swung into action when news of the abandoned
birds broke last month.
“We rehabilitate, that’s our business, and
with the aim of releasing back into the wild. We have very large facilities
here that were built last year. And we thought we were the best people to
contribute to this project,” said Stander.
“As time
goes on and they grow, we are going have to adapt the way that we house them
and make sure that they have long running space so they can exercise their
legs.”
South
Africa has faced an extended period of severe drought, with the government
announcing “day zero” – a moment when dam levels would be so
low that they would turn off the taps in Cape Town and send people to communal
water collection points.
This
apocalyptic notion prompted water stockpiling and panic, but also led to a
dramatic reduction in per capita water usage and day zero was eventually
averted. But the impacts of the drought are still being felt.
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