The
flamingo population of India’s largest city has tripled. Is it thanks to sewage
boosting the blue-green algae they feed on?
Payal
Mohta in Mumbai
Tue 26
Mar 2019 09.00 GMTLast modified on Tue 26 Mar
2019 11.08 GMT
There is
an air of anxious excitement among the urban professionals and tourists on
board our 24-seater motorboat as we enter Thane Creek.
A chorus
of “oohs” and “aahs” breaks out as we spot the visions in pink we came to see –
hundreds of flamingos listlessly bobbing in the murky green water – followed by
the furious clicking of cameras.
Then,
almost as one, the birds skim the water and take off in sync. “They always stay
together,” says Prathamesh Desai, who has been organising birding excursions in
the city for seven years. “They are an extremely gregarious species.”
These
birds have begun congregating in India’s largest city in astonishing numbers. A
count in January this year found 120,000
flamingos in the city – three times their highest population in at
least four decades.
“Flamingos
began migrating to Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s,” says Rahul Khot, assistant
director of the Bombay
Natural History Society (BNHS), one of the oldest scientific
institutions in India. “Records show that since then their numbers have hovered
between 30,000 and 40,000 each season.”
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