Many chicks and eggs were abandoned and a rescue operation driven by Saam Staan Kimberley and the Kimberley SPCA ensued, during which approximately 2000 flamingo chicks were recovered and distributed to various rehabilitation facilities around the country.īirdLife South Africa became actively involved in this crisis situation to closely monitor both the birds and the conditions on the dam in order to minimize further set-backs to the still ongoing breeding event. This exposed the birds to a heightened threat of predation and subjected them to very high temperatures. A few days later the combination of prolonged drought and an almost non-existent effluent flow into the dam from the Homevale Waste Water Treatment Works lowered the water level of the dam to a point below some of the occupied nests. On January 14th 2019 Tania Anderson counted >8 000 adults incubating on nest turrets and >1 000 already mobile chicks in ‘créches’ in a breeding colony at the same site.

BirdLife South Africa Occasional Reportsĭuring September 2017, probably frantically driven by an urgency to breed and suitable conditions including abundant food, the flamingos built their turret nests en masse on the south-western fringe and successfully raised an estimated 8 000 chicks.

BirdLife South Africa’s Scientific Publications.

Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.

International Ornithological Congress 2022 Durban.

What we do: Protecting Ecosystems (Sites and KBAs).

While this lake remains deadly to most, it is still a vital ecosystem. The proposed construction of a hydroelectric plant on the Ewaso Ng’iro River and a soda ash plant on its shores threatens the lake’s salinity and the flamingos. If they spent any longer in the lake, they would have died.Ĭurrently, Lake Natron is under threat.

It burned their eyes and skin, but they managed to drag themselves ashore. Everyone survived the crash but they were in the water unprotected. In 2007, a helicopter carrying a group of wildlife videographers wishing to get footage of the flamingos crashed into the lake. People have occasionally survived the lake’s potency. Lake Natron would have saved pharaonic embalmers a lot of work. The ancient Egyptians used sodium carbonate and bicarbonate in the mummification process. Photo: Shutterstockįor most humans, the lake’s qualities are more suitable for the dead than the living. The lake doesn’t quite have that instant effect. The graphically eerie positions looked like the finger of Medusa had really touched them.

Wildlife photographer Nick Brandt made headlines in 2013 by staging photos of the mummified remains of the poor creatures around Lake Natron. They drown in the toxic potion, and their outsides and insides calcify. The mirror-like surface tricks them into diving into the red waters for food. Some alkaline tilapia (a member of the cichlid family) can sustain themselves in the cooler parts of the lake.īut to some wildlife, especially birds, Lake Natron can be a death trap. Somehow, a few species of fish, invertebrates, and algae manage to live in the lake. In Lake Natron, their pigment paints the water a striking red. Generally, cyanobacteria carry different pigments. The lake’s salinity has welcomed salt-consuming, halophilic microorganisms called cyanobacteria, which need photosynthesis to survive. Lake Natron’s deceptively glassy surface.

Its average alkalinity is 10.5, its pH surpasses 12, and its water temperature ranges from 40˚ to 60˚C. This concentrated the trona (sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate) and natron (hydrated sodium carbonate) in the leftover water, creating a highly toxic brine. Since the lake had no outflow and received irregular rainfall, it endured thousands of years of intense evaporation from the heat. During the Pleistocene period, a rare type of lava rich in sodium and potassium carbonates ran down the slopes of the Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano and into the lake. It’s fed by the Southern Ewaso Ng’iro River in Kenya. This shallow but wide lake is just three metres deep but 22km wide. Tanzania has no less than four alkaline lakes, but Lake Natron is the most famous. Lake Natron is a hypersaline and highly alkaline lake located in the eastern section of the volatile East African Rift. In North Tanzania, a unique inland lake turns wildlife to stone. That’s a legend, but a natural wonder in Africa today does just that. We all know about the Greek monster Medusa, whose deadly gaze turned men to stone.

Lake natron flamingo nest