- The annual migration of a flock of thousands of greater flamingos to northern Sri Lanka’s Mannar wetland draws crowds of photographers, a growing number of whom now use drones to snap the birds from above.
- Environmental activists and authorities have warned against this trend, saying the presence of drones disturbs the birds and could drive them away from Mannar altogether.
- Experts point to a worrying precedent: In the 1990s, the Bundala wetland in the country’s south was pumped full of fresh water as part of an irrigation program, killing off the shrimp and plankton that flamingos there fed on. The flamingos soon abandoned the wetland.
- In Mannar, a region impoverished by decades of civil war, the flamingos are a key tourism attraction that should be preserved to help boost the livelihoods of locals, experts say.
One such flock, numbering about 5,000 greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus), stopped over at the Mannar wetland, a Ramsar site, in northern Sri Lanka this past January. The annual visitors drew large crowds, many of them armed with professional-grade cameras and lenses to match, and others toting smartphones while trying to get up close to the birds.
Then there were those, a small but growing group, that brought drones. Flying them right above the flamingo flock in search of picturesque aerial shots, they included both professional and hobbyist photographers. To environmentalists, however, this emerging trend could pose a serious threat to the flamingos in particular, and to wildlife in general.
https://news-mongabay-com.cdn.amppr...s-concerns-for-sri-lankas-flamingo-flock/amp/
