ENVIRONMENT-KENYA: Flamingos Fly From Traditional Haunts

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Feb 4 1996 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of flamingos, the graceful pink birds that have fascinated visitors for decades, are deserting their home in drought-stricken Lake Nakuru and the exodus spells trouble for the tourist-dependent town.

The birds used to attract as many as 200,000 tourists to marvel at the splendour of the flamingos that virtually covered the saline lake. Now the birds are voting with their wings and are off in search of more habitable homes in the region, some going as far as neighbouring Tanzania.

Wildlife officials say it happened before, and the flamingos will be back one day. But Nakuru town leaders, in a desperate attempt to attract them back, have suggested that the town’s waste water, including sewerage, be pumped into the lake to raise the water level.

Alarmed that they are serious, the state-run Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has warned the recommendation would lead to both “ecological and environmental disaster” for the lake and Nakuru itself, 180 kms west of the capital Nairobi.

“Flamingos like many other bird species are migratory,” a KWS statement pointed out. “Bird or wildlife migrations and dispersals are natural occurances that are triggered off by seasonal variabilities and changes in habitats and environmental conditions.”

An estimated three million flamingos live in the saline lakes of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley. These include Natron, Nakuru, Elementaita and Bogoria. The birds are known to breed mainly on Lake Natron in Tanzania where environmental conditions are ideal, before flying back to Kenya.

“These birds migrate between these lakes depending on the availability of food resources and weather conditions,” explains KWS.

Their main food source is blue green algae which flourishes in saline water bodies. Its abundance is dependent on the nutrient content of the water.

Due to the relatively high nutrient content in Lake Nakuru algae blooming occurs quite frequently when the weather conditions are good and the water level is fairly high. When this occurs, the flamingos flock in from the other main lakes, and the population at Nakuru can hit two million.

However, during times of drought, the water level of the lake and nutrient content falls and the flamingos move on. When times are really bad, that can be all the way to Ethiopia in the north or Botswana to the south.

“Therefore there is no cause for alarm that currently the flamingo population on the Lake is low. It is not an ecological disaster. The present episode is not the first one, neither will it be the last time for the flamingos to move. Life is full of wonders and bird and animal migrations is one of them,” says KWS.

However, Joseph Muya, marketing manager at the Lake Nakuru Lodge is far less sanguine. He says the flamingos departure has knocked 30 percent off tourism earnings in the town in the past three months. Hotels have laid of workers and Muya predicts the situation could get even worse until the flamingos return.

Lake Nakuru lies at the bottom of a catchment basin covering 180 square kms which is bordered by Menengai Crater to the north, Nyandarua escarpment in the east, the Maus to the west and south by the Elementaita Hills.

The lake is drained by four rivers but the volume of water they provide has declined over the years due to deforestation in the catchment area as a result of increased settlement by small scale farmers. Estimates made from land use maps, aerial photographs and satellite imageries of 1970 and 1986 indicate a decrease of the forested area from 47 percent to 26 percent.

Lake Nakuru is also particularly vulnerable to drought due to its shallowness and the highly porous soils in the area.