Larnaca: The first flamingos of the season have arrived at the Larnaca Salt Lake, marking the start of the annual wintering period during which Cyprus hosts one of the largest populations of the migratory species in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, wildlife experts are raising concerns over a significant decline in their numbers, estimated at 14-31% since 2013.
According to Cyprus News Agency, several hundred flamingos have reached the island so far. Speaking to CNA, Nikos Kassinis, Senior Officer at the Game and Fauna Service, noted that flamingos visit five natural wetland sites across Cyprus: Akrotiri in Limassol, the Larnaca Salt Lakes, Paralimni Lake, Oroklini Lake, and a number of lakes in the Turkish-occupied Famagusta area.
Kassinis stated that the largest populations winter in the Larnaca and Akrotiri salt lakes. On average, between 5,000 and 10,000 flamingos winter in these wetlands each year, a figure representing more than 1% of the species’ Eastern Mediterranean population.
Kassinis noted that systematic monthly counts of waterbirds conducted for more than two decades by the Game and Fauna Service and BirdLife Cyprus show a sustained decrease in the number of flamingos visiting Cyprus. “From 2013 until today, we are seeing a decline of 14-31%,” he said.
A summary of the species’ status in Cyprus was recently presented at the 4th International Flamingo Symposium held in Italy from 10-15 November.
Kassinis pointed to several possible factors behind the decline, including frequent droughts, inflows of poor-quality water that reduce available food sources, development pressures, and incompatible human activities around wetland areas.
He added that the Pandoteira Project, a ten-year initiative co-funded by the EU’s LIFE Programme, aims to fill important knowledge gaps regarding the feeding, breeding, and resting requirements of specific species, as well as the quantification of the threats they face. Flamingos are among the species targeted by the project, he said.
“Addressing these knowledge gaps will allow us to adopt targeted conservation measures to improve the status of these species in specific Special Protection Areas,” Kassinis said.
“As a result, we will be able to achieve conservation objectives both for the species themselves and for the Natura 2000 sites where they are found,” he concluded.