Now for a bit of good news!

The flamingoes are back

As The Washington Post reported Sunday, wild Mexican flamingoes blown to the Sunshine State by a hurricane, have decided to stay. Colonies of the strange and beautiful waders, who get their color from their all-you-can-eat shrimp diet, have been spotted recently in thirteen coastal spots from Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coasts down to the Keys. The flamingoes are back!

What, you didn’t know they were gone?  In fact, lots of Americans, including Floridians, don’t know that the wild colonies of the pink birds disappeared from the state about sixty years ago. The ones displayed at tourist spots were imports who, quite reasonably, fooled a lot of us into thinking the bird most associated with the state was thriving.

The story of the Florida flamingo’s decline begins with the feather craze that swept turn-of-the-century fashion. Millions of tropical birds were killed for their plumage, which was used to decorate women’s hats.  As the Post noted, the flamingo has a five-foot wingspan, which means they have so many bright wing feathers that they must have been irresistible to hunters who paid nothing for the birds they killed and wholesaled what they plucked. It was all profit, save for hunting supplies and their own labor.

Conservationists noticed the birds’ disappearance. A 1918 law outlawed the trade, but flocks continued to decline in number and population. Cycles of real estate booms and busts ate away at habitat until the flamingoes were all gone. Ironically enough, it was around this time that boosters and everyday Floridians adopted the charismatic bird as a symbol of their state and a marketing tool. All sorts of businesses – hotels, tourist shops, even restaurants -- tacked “flamingo” onto their names, but the only ones anyone saw aside from the imports were plastic lawn ornaments.

Now, in a time when the press is reporting on animals falling dead in record heat and warming seas promise a horrific hurricane season, we can take some delight in the pink flocks that have come home to roost in Florida. Having arrived as guests they found the environment hospitable and, like snowbirds who move to the Sunshine State for good, are making themselves quite comfortable.

For more on this story see the original Post report here.