Hurricane Idalia scattered flamingos across the U.S., from Florida to Ohio | 24CA News
As It Happens6:36Hurricane Idalia scattered flamingos throughout the U.S., from Florida to Ohio
Jerry Lorenz was past excited to feast his eyes upon a flamboyance of flamingos in Florida.
The vivid pink birds could also be an iconic image of the sunshine state, however the overwhelming majority residing there lately are plastic garden ornaments.
So when Lorenz, the state analysis director for Audubon Florida, peeped 16 of them by means of his binoculars at Florida’s Everglades National Park on Wednesday night time, it was fairly particular — even when they had been pushed there by a hurricane.
“They were basically hunted to extinction in Florida from the 1880s, early 1900s, and we have never had, since then, a resident population,” Lorenz, the state analysis director for he conservation group Audubon Florida, advised As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“Very excited to see flamingos back in this area where there used to be thousands of them.”
‘Spread just about throughout’
And Lorenz is not the one fowl lover excited to identify the gangly creatures in current weeks.
Jacob Roalef of Birding Ecotours just lately snapped a photograph of flamingos bathing on the Caesar Creek State Park in Ohio.
He advised CBC that native birdwatcher George Keller first reported the sighting on a Facebook group for uncommon birds within the state.
“As soon as I saw that, I gathered my gear and rushed out the door,” Roalef mentioned in an e mail.
“I have been birding in Ohio for nearly 10 years now and it is always a rush to see something very rare, but these Flamingos felt extra special. It was exhilarating and an exciting hour or so from the time of learning about the birds’ presence to then spending some time watching these incredible birds.”
Lorenz says flamingos nest in Mexico, Cuba and Turks & Caico, and had been doubtless blown off beam by Idalia’s highly effective winds in late August.
“As the storm broke up, they were, you know, spread pretty much all over the southeastern United States,” he mentioned.
It’s not clear precisely what number of of them made the unplanned journey throughout the border, however he estimates there are a minimum of 100.
“I can’t even enumerate at this point,” Lorenz mentioned. “We have gotten reports from Kentucky, Tennessee, I believe, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. But most of them are in Florida.”
A flamboyance of flamingos was noticed on Florida’s Treasure Island on Aug. 31, doubtless blown off beam by Hurricane Idalia. The birds are native to Florida however are hardly ever seen there since they had been hunted to close extinction on the flip of the twentieth century.
Being blown off beam by a hurricane might be a traumatic expertise, Lorenz says. Nevertheless, he is not too anxious about the long run well-being of those surprising transplants.
“These birds, they’re quite capable of sustained flight. They prove that getting here. And so as the temperature drops, or even just because they feel like it, they’ll start moving south again,” he mentioned.
“I can’t think like a bird, but I think they know exactly where they are.”
Flamingos want their area
Still, he cautions curious onlookers to maintain a respectful distance of a minimum of 60 metres.
“These birds have gone through a very stressful ordeal,” he mentioned. “They do not need to be disturbed. If you’re close enough that the bird is looking at you and responding to what you’re doing, you’re too close.”
The penalties of spooking them, he says, might be lethal for the already exhausted creatures.
“Since birds have to be lightweight, they don’t store fat like we do. And because they don’t store fat, they have to make up that energy as they go,” he mentioned. “So if you make them fly from an area that means that they have to find food to replace what it takes to fly. And it takes a lot of energy for those big birds to fly.”
Already, he is aware of of two circumstances of flamingos turning up useless, and one which was injured and brought to a wildlife rehabilitation facility.
Hello fancy hats, goodbye flamingos
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC), American Flamingos are native to the state, however all however disappeared by the flip of the twentieth century.
Lorenz says they had been hunted to near-extinction throughout the nineteenth century plume commerce, when it was thought-about posh to sport unique feathers on a helmet or a hat.
Today, American flamingos are principally distributed throughout the Caribbean, and Florida’s flamingos make up lower than one per cent of the worldwide inhabitants of about 260,000-330,000 mature people, the FFWCC mentioned.
There have been increasingly flamingo sightings in Florida lately, Lorenz mentioned, although they’re principally transient, and it is laborious to say what number of are, in actual fact, escapees from zoos and different animal points of interest.
Still, each new sighting offers him hope.
“I think that they will probably head back to where they’re familiar with. But as the years go on, we do get more and more bigger and bigger flocks that come to Florida,” he mentioned.
“They might stay a day or two or they might stay several months. And I think eventually we will have a resident population.”
