How flamingos navigate the extreme environments of saline lakes and the welfare threats they face from human disturbance.
Flamingo welfare is intimately tied to the integrity of their extreme lake habitats. As colonial nesters in caustic soda lakes, flamingos have evolved to exploit environments inhospitable to most predators. Human disturbance — from tourism, aerial surveys, or industrial activity — during the breeding season can trigger mass colony abandonment, leaving eggs and chicks to die in the harsh conditions. Water extraction from lake catchments changes the chemistry that produces their algal food. The famous chick migration — where thousands of chicks walk en masse to fresh water — is a dramatic welfare gauntlet where disturbance causes significant mortality.