Flamingo colony faces danger

DUDEN LAKE, Turkey — With flocks of gregarious pink flamingos living and feeding together, it is easy to see why Turkey’s Duden Lake has become a major attraction for bird lovers and tourists.

But the birds face a threat to their home as the water levels in their spectacular ecosystem have receded in the past years due to excessive human consumption of water.

Located some 100 kilometers south of Ankara, the brackish lake is surrounded by wheat fields and steppe, some of which are used for cattle grazing.

The site has been declared a protected area, much to the enjoyment of bird watchers from Ankara.

Duden and the neighboring lakes are attached ecologically to the Salt Lake, one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world and Turkey’s second largest lake in terms of area. It provides sanctuary for thousands of flamingos and other bird species, some of which are endangered.

Recent media reports said that the Salt Lake has been classified as a “zone that has suffered serious and irreparable damages in the last 10 years or irreversibly lost small but significant parts”, and it needs immediate intervention to take protective measures.

“Salt Lake is shrinking because of climate change but also because of excessive agricultural practices. This is a big threat for the flamingo colonies,” said Melih Ozbek, an engineer by profession and a bird lover with expertise in the field.

Residents in Salt Lake have dug nearly 110,000 wells there for mainly irrigation purposes, said Ozbek, which has contributed to the extensive shrinking.

Ozbek worries that although flamingos are not an endangered species, their disappearing habitat could make them a rarer sight in the future.

Local authorities have taken drastic measures in the past eight years to revive the lake, but so far it has failed to return to former levels.