Flamingo tirade ends in meeting
FOLLOWING a verbal tirade on social media, various role-players in the Kamfers Dam flamingo rescue saga met in Kimberley yesterday to provide updates and discuss a way forward.
The high-level gathering, hosted by the Northern Cape Department of Environmental Affairs, was attended by more than 30 representatives and scientists from Birdlife SA, the Pan African Association of Zoos and Aquariums (PAAZA), Sea World San Diego, Dallas Zoo, Saam Staan Kimberley, the SPCA, veterinarians, Mike Bolhuis, who owns a flamingo farm, SANCCOB, representatives from KEM-JV, the CEO of Ekapa Mining, the owner of Kamfers Dam farm, the Department of Water and Sanitation, the Department of Environmental Affairs and the provincial Department of Environment and Nature Conservation (DENC).
Around half of the 1 934 flamingo chicks rescued from Kamfers Dam and subsequently placed in rehabilitation centres across South Africa, are still alive.
The meeting follows a heated spat between wildlife societies and the zoo fraternity in the wake of the forced removal of almost 2 000 flamingo chicks, who were said to be facing almost certain death due to receding water levels at Kamfers Dam.
Following their emergency evacuation, these flamingo chicks are being housed at various rehabilitation centres throughout South Africa where they have been cared for and hand fed for the past two weeks.
The chairperson of the meeting, DENC’S director of biodiversity management, Les Abrahams, described the talks as open, frank and very constructive.
“The roles of the various role-players have now been clarified. What is of importance is the well-being of the flamingo chicks and how to react if such circumstances reoccur in future.
“One of our biggest problems is people – no matter how well intentioned – who disturb the nesting birds as the older ones are inclined to desert the young ones if this happens. We are particularly concerned that this would lead to us having to rescue thousands of hatchlings again,” Abrahams said.
“Birdlife SA will in future be assisted in the monitoring process by an international group of scientists, the SPCA, Saam Staan Kimberley, the farm owners and the Department of Environment and Nature Conservation,” he added.
The role played by Sol Plaatje Municipality’s dysfunctional Gogga Pump Station and the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Plant (HWWTP) in the present state of affairs at Kamfers Dam was also closely examined.
“We were informed by Ekapa that it was assisting Sol Plaatje to reopen the old pipeline between the Gogga Pump Station and the HWWTP. This will, in the short term, bring some relief by increasing the volume of water into Kamfers Dam, while the new pipeline, which has gone out on tender, is being constructed.
“At present more than 20 megalitres of untreated effluent simply flows into the veld near Platfontein, posing a serious health hazard for both people and grazing animals,” Abrahams explained.
The gathering also discussed the various options regarding when and how the birds would be released. To this end various protocols are being set up, and smaller committees have been tasked with examining and drawing up various contingency plans.
The media was asked to leave the meeting yesterday after KEM-JV CEO Jahn Hohne instructed a media representative to leave, saying that he “did not trust the media” shortly after apologising in advance to attendees of the meeting that he would be “stepping on some toes” while presenting some “hard-hitting” facts.
A war of words broke out on the Save the Flamingos Facebook page over the weekend after Birdlife SA “intercepted a group of people walking, in their waders and with torches, in the dark amongst the breeding colony of lesser flamingos at Kamfers Dam”.
“Tania Anderson confronted them (Linja Allen, members of Kimberley’s SPCA, and perhaps other people) and asked what they were doing.
“They said they were checking the western edge of the colony for signs of breeding, but would retreat if they heard the flamingos wing-flapping,” Birdlife CEO, Mark Anderson, said in a post on the site.
“It is the ABSOLUTE LAST THING we want to do . . . disturbance of the breeding birds.” Anderson questioned “the motive of these people and organisations”.
“A group of American zoo people descend on our country, make no effort to contact the people who have been monitoring, studying and conserving Kamfers Dam’s flamingos, and one of the first things that they do is go against what we, as conservationists, are trying to achieve.
“Birdlife South Africa, with the assistance from the Booth family, and with funding from the Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, is working very hard to ensure that the breeding event proceeds without disturbance.
“It would be an understatement to say that a few of us are fuming mad tonight!”