Kimberley flamingo conservationists suspended
August 13, 2008
Posted in Conservation
Three employees of the Northern Cape department of tourism, environment and nature conservation who have been involved in efforts to preserve the flamingos of Kamfer’s Dam in Kimberley have been placed on “precautionary suspension”, the Diamond Fields Advertiser reports. Mark Anderson an ornithologist, Julius Koen, the deputy director of conservation, and Eric Hermann, from scientific services have been suspended and an investigation will take place regarding “complaints received about the alleged role individuals played in the flamingo saga both privately and as employees of the department”, the report says.
Source: Save the Flamingo
Update: Kimberley’s flamingos
July 14, 2008
Posted in Conservation
More than 5,600 people have signed the online petition to save the only lesser flamingo breeding site in South Africa on Kamfer’s Dam in Kimberley. The dam is one of only four sites in Africa where the flamingo breeds and it is seriously threatened by a leaky sewerage works in desperate need of repair and a potential housing development. If you want to sign the petition or find out more, go to the Save the Flamingos website
Help save Kimberley’s flamingos
July 1, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The lesser flamingo breeding success story on Kimberley’s Kamfers Dam may be shortlived thanks to an ageing sewage works that is leaking raw sewage into the dam, and a planned housing and shopping mall development.
An insert on M-Net’s Carte Blanche on Sunday was very disheartening because the protests against the site of proposed multibillion-rand Northgate development are being turned into a race issue by people who are pro-development. And the local council also appears to be in denial about the sewage problem.
Thousands of flamingo chicks hatched on a purpose-built island in the middle of the dam earlier this year, the first time the birds had bred on Kamfer’s Dam. Dr Brooks Childress, the chairman of the IUCN international flamingo specialist group, said the breeding island was “arguably the single most important flamingo conservation project to have taken place anywhere in the world in recent years”.
A website has been set up at www.savetheflamingo.co.za where you can find out more about the problem and sign an online petition.
Update: development versus Africa’s flamingos
May 6, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The Sunday Times reports that a R2-billion development is planned for Kamfers Dam in the Northern Cape town of Kimberley, the site of the biggest breeding colony of lesser flamingos in South Africa. It is one of only four breeding colonies for this species of bird in the whole of Africa. Environmentalists fear the new development will destroy the breeding colony, which appears to have benefited greatly from the recent building of an artificial island.
Meanwhile, in Tanzania, a state firm has rejected the concerns of environmentalists that a soda ash plant planned for Lake Natron will damage the soda lake’s fragile ecosystem, Reuters reports. Three quarters of the world’s lesser flamingos breed on Lake Natron.
A spokesman for Tanzania’s state-run National Development Corporation (NDC), which is building the plant with an Indian partner, Tata Chemicals, said there were plans to shift the plant 35km from the lakeshore, which would help preserve the birds. But conservationists fear the plant’s operations may kill the algae on which the flamingos feed. The conservationists say that the lesser flamingo could become extinct in five years if its habitat is destroyed, Reuters reports.
Chicks galore at Africa’s newest flamingo breeding colony in Kimberley
January 22, 2008
Posted in Conservation
Lesser flamingos have started to breed on a specially constructed artificial island at Kamfers Dam near Kimberley in the Northern Cape. The first chicks are thought to have hatched at the end of December and Mark Anderson, an ornithologist monitoring the birds, thinks there may be up to 1,000 chicks “hidden among the masses of adults” on the S-shaped island .
This is the first time that lesser flamingos have successfully bred in South Africa and the first time that they have bred on an artificial island, Anderson says.
Kamfers Dam is now the fourth breeding colony for this species of bird in Africa (there are two others in India). They also breed at Sua Pan in Botswana, Etosha Pan in Namibia and Lake Natron in Tanzania. All of these breeding sites are threatened by various human-induced factors, says Anderson, so it is critically important that lesser flamingos have another breeding site.
At present there are said to be about 50,000 lesser flamingos on Kamfers Dam. The dam is a Natural Heritage Site and an Important Bird Area.
For pictures and regular news updates on the Kamfer Dam breeding colony visit Mark Anderson’s website.
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