Home / News / External Feeds / Twin Threat Heightens Flamingo’s Plight
From Wikipedia

Twin Threat Heightens Flamingo’s Plight

(From surfbirds.com) – A second major threat is facing endangered lesser flamingos in Africa after the announcement of development plans close to a man-made breeding site, built less than two years ago to help reverse the birds” decline. Kamfers Dam near Kimberley, South Africa, is the only nesting site for lesser flamingos in the country and one of only six breeding areas for the birds in the world.

Lesser flamingos are notoriously vulnerable to disturbance and human encroachment and the new development, and the pollution, could break South African Government commitments to international treaties safeguarding wildlife.

The wetland has hosted more than 50,000 lesser flamingos – about 50 per cent of the southern African population – and an incredible 9,000 chicks hatched on the dam’s deliberately S-shaped artificial flamingo island this year. But conservationists believe new homes planned for a buffer zone protecting the island could cause the birds to desert the site, where pollution from a sewage plant is thought to be causing deformities in lesser flamingo chicks.

Duncan Pritchard, Acting Executive Director of BirdLife South Africa, said: ‘Creating the breeding island at Kamfers Dam was a huge investment and its future should not be jeopardised by development or pollution.

‘If tests prove the birds’ deformities are being caused by poor water quality, many other species and possibly the entire aquatic system of the dam could be at risk.

‘Without urgent action, the dam will become a polluted cesspool devoid of birdlife and a hazard to the people of Kimberley. If nothing is done and the housing development is allowed, our political leaders will have failed us.’

Kamfers Dam is being used to dump raw sewage from a malfunctioning treatment works close to the birds’ breeding island. Yet the Sol Plaatje Municipality, which runs the sewage plant and includes a lesser flamingo in its emblem, is backing plans to build 6,500 upmarket homes on part of a buffer zone surrounding the island.

 

Read Full Article

 

Check Also

Korean shipping company pleads guilty to illegal dumping on voyage

(From dailyastorian.info)- STX Pan Ocean Co., Ltd., a South Korean shipping company pleaded guilty Friday …