In Mumbai wetland, a spectacle in pink

nMUMBAI: First, thousands of lesser flamingos, likely from Gujarat, coloured the Talawe wetlands near NRI Complex in Navi Mumbai pink during the lockdown, their numbers bolstered by the sheer lack of human activity.

Now, the water in part of the wetland itself has turned pink, probably due to an explosive blooming of red algae that thrives in saline water, especially as the summer picks up and the wetland loses water.

The deep pink water, located towards the south-eastern end of the wetland, was spotted by HT photojournalist Pratik Chorge on Thursday. The pink water was not there till late last week.

The bloom has been identified as rare and first-of-its-kind occurence for Mumbai Metropolitan Region by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) that plans to take samples of the water for study. However, a local resident, Seema Tania from NRI Complex, Seawoods, said she spotted the pink wash across a much larger area at the same creek in 2016.

“Almost 500-600m patch of the creek turned bright pink and we thought chemicals had been dumped in the creek,” she said.

While researchers were unsure of what may have caused it, BNHS and independent microbiologists presume that the colour is from microscopic algae. “Owing to high salinity in the area, it looks like an algal bloom. Our researchers have never witnessed something like this along Mumbai’s creeks,” said Deepak Apte, director, BNHS. “Around the world, such a phenomena has been observed regularly with red algae but it has to be investigated how it has appeared along the Mumbai creek.”

Flamingos are known to feed on this algae, crustaceans, shrimp, and aquatic plants, which gives them the pink colour, said Apte. The birds also feed on

PRATIK CHORGE/HT A bloom of deep pink water seen at the Talawe wetland in Navi Mumbai. Experts said the colour could be n due to microscopic algae and bacteria producing beta-carotene, among other factors.