Dozens of flamingos blown into Florida by Idalia
FORT MYERS, Fla. — From yard art to paintings, sculptures, mailboxes, Tshirts, ties, socks and underwear, the likeness of a flamingo can show up nearly anywhere in Florida.
Flamingos even adorn Florida’s highly coveted lottery tickets, but there’s still doubt that the bird ever lived here.
Last week flamingos showed up in the flesh as dozens of the birds were reported along the west coast of Florida — just as Hurricane Idalia chugged northward through the Gulf of Mexico. One sighting was at the Sanibel Causeway.
It was the first time a flamingo had ever been documented in places like Alachua County.
One scientist thinks the birds are from the Yucatan, that they were traveling from Mexico to Cuba, and that Idalia simply blew them off course.
“I guess the question is: Where are these flamingos going, and whatever happened to Pinky,” said Keith Laakkonen, director of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples. “They’ve been seen at three different places today, the
Sanibel Causeway, in Punta Gorda and Tarpon Springs.” More on Pinky later.
No one knows exactly how many of the great omnivores are in Florida right now, but some ornithologists have speculated on social media that as many as 70 of the pink-and-gray birds were blown off-course.
Reports and photos of flocks of flamingos came from Bunche Beach, Blind Pass, Charlotte Harbor, Stump Pass,
Punta Gorda and north all the way to Clearwater.
One this is for sure: They came here with Hurricane Idalia.
“There’s no way they’re not storm birds,” Laakonen said. “The question is: Where did they come from? Was it Mexico or Cuba? There are good populations in the Yucatan, and several of the birds that were seen were juveniles. So these birds are from a breeding population.”
Florida’s obsession with flamingos
Although the debate about the historic prevalence of this bird in Florida still rages, people in the Sunshine State are simply crazy about anything flamingo.
The plastic yard art that Florida’s known for first appeared in American culture in 1957, according to the Smithsonian.
And the tradition actually started in Leominster, Massachusetts, the proclaimed plastics capital of the world.
People dress like them for Halloween, while others watch their movements and lives online.
Social media were flooded Wednesday with images and shaky video of the birds – some of the footage was taken near the Sanibel Causeway.
Are they native to Florida?
There has long been a debate among scientists about whether or not flamingos lived year-round in south Florida.
Plenty of historical anecdotal accounts have been recorded, but no one seems to know if the birds, historically, actually lived and bred here.
Jerry Lorenz is an Audubon researcher in the Florida Keys and an expert on flamingos and their history and status in Florida.
He says flamingos are native to Florida, and that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (the state agency charged with protecting wildlife) should add the bird to its list of endangered species.
“Usually, we see one here or two (in Everglades National Park of Florida Bay), but this is pretty much all over the state,” Lorenz said. “There’s traffic in the Yucatan in that area, and they may have been traveling from the Yucatan to Cuba. And with the storm, they got pushed north as the storm grew. I really think that’s what happened.”