Aussie Finch Forum

Well it's sad to think that there is now only one flamingo left in Australia according a story on the ABC web-site: Flamingo believed to be world's oldest dies at Adelaide Zoo aged 83. Even stranger is the news that "it was not known when Adelaide Zoo could house another greater flamingo, because of a moratorium on their importation to Australia". I remember a small flock of Chilean Flamingoes at Taronga zoo that survived up until the 1980s. I recall that someone suggested that they try to get them to breed by putting mirrors in their enclosure to give the impression of a much larger colony - sadly nothing seemed to work. I seem to recall that there are flamingoes in Australia's fossil record and they only disappeared during the Micocene (10000 YBP) and now they are set to disappear again.

I saw this Flamingo at Adelaide Zoo only last September:



I remember the keeper at the zoo did mention that the bird was very old and they could not import more.

Pity they did not think about 10 years ago to advise the powers that be that they had to import a dozen more as it is crulety to flamingos to keep them in groups of less than 12.
LML

Read somewhere that Aus is the only continent without a flamingo population . .

But because of their flight patterns it was not out of the question that one day some vagrants may find their way here

A faint hope at best but looks the only chance

The zoos put forward a proposal to import flamingos from the UK (Slimbridge) in the 90s.
I believe that the importation had been approved.
However, when push came to shove, they didn't have the cash.

So now we're down to one in the country- pretty sad, really.

New Zealand now has a thriving population that have just started to breed.

I read about the NZ flamingos - 20 were hand-raised from eggs imported from England in 2001 and these birds are now "breeding" in that 2 hatchlings were taken after they were incubated by the parents and then hand-raised. I gather that at least two pairs must have nested as they normally only have a single egg.. Another little gem I noticed is that like pigeons they make a crop milk to feed their hatchlings.

Thanks Greg , interesting read.

GregH wrote:I read about the NZ flamingos - 20 were hand-raised from eggs imported from England in 2001 and these birds are now "breeding" in that 2 hatchlings were taken after they were incubated by the parents and then hand-raised. I gather that at least two pairs must have nested as they normally only have a single egg.. Another little gem I noticed is that like pigeons they make a crop milk to feed their hatchlings.

Double-clutching is also a well-established practice in conservation in NZ, so a single pair may have renested.