Ushaka Sea World on a mission to save flamingo chicks

About 250 starving and dehydrated Lesser Flamingo chicks were admitted to Ushaka Sea World’s emergency nursery in a last-minute rescue mission last week.

The tiny chicks were about two days old when they were saved from the drought-stricken Kamfers Dam near Kimberley and flown to Durban, to be taken under the wing of resident veterinarian Dr Francois Lampen and his team.

“If these chicks were not rescued, they would have all died. We knew that saving them at this stage was not going to be easy and unfortunately we have had a roughly 30 percent mortality rate. The rest of the chicks seem to be doing well and we are feeling optimistic,” said Dr Lampen, who has experience with these birds.

Over 15 000 Lesser Flamingos reportedly nest at the Kamfers Dam but the dam is drying up and the chicks have been abandoned.

About 1000 chicks have been rescued already.

Dr Lampen and his animal care team along with a group of volunteers have been working around the clock to keep the chicks warm, fed and alive.

“We follow international best practices husbandry guidelines to give the chicks the best chance of survival. They stay under heated lamps as they cannot control their temperature well enough themselves yet. They weigh about 100 grams each and are fed about 10 millilitres per feed which is done every four hours from 7am to 7pm. They have settled down nicely and are learning to feed from the syringe.”

He said some of the chicks are already learning to self-feed, which is a big step.

“We are starting to take them out into the sun and put out little bowls of water to encourage them to self-feed. Being filter feeders, they need to learn to put their little beaks into the water. We hope they will be able to move away from the syringe feeding in the next week or two.”

They are not out of the woods yet though, as Dr Lampen said flamingos are quite tricky birds because of their long legs.

“The risk of injuries or fractures are quite high. We will probably keep them with us until they are about three or four months old and then we will wait to hear if they will be taken back home and re-integrated into the colony at the Kamfers Dam or taken somewhere else.”

The survival of these chicks would not have been possible without the huge support they received during this overwhelming crisis management time.

“We have had a fantastic response and cannot thank people enough for their help. We have had volunteers from all over and good sponsorship for food and medicine both locally and internationally. Thank you to everyone.”

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