Some flamingos not migrating from Turkey due to global warming: Academic

VAN

Lake Van in Turkey’s east is one of the resting centers in the country for birds migrating between North Africa and Iran, but some flamingos there have not left the region in the last 10 years due to global warming, an academic has said.

“Around 8,000 to 10,000 flamingos stop and rest in Van Lake. November is the month they migrate back to North Africa. We saw that around 500 of them did not leave,” said Özdemir Adıgüzel from Van Yüzüncü Yıl University.

The academic blames global warming for the flamingos’ reluctance to fly away.

According to the academic, Van Lake is a center for four kinds of birds.

“We categorize the birds into four in accordance with the four seasons. The first category consists of local birds. We see them at Lake Van every time,” said Adıgüzel.

The second group consists of the summer migrators. “They come in the spring and leave in the fall,” he said.

Then there are transit-passers, he added. “They leave any time after some rest.”

“Finally, we have the winter migrators. One is the white swan from Siberia. They come around November as Siberia starts getting cold and leave Lake Van in the spring,” noted Adıgüzel.

The white swans and the flamingos create a colorful scene for nature lovers, added the academic.

According to data from Turkey’s Environment and Urbanization Ministry, there are 600,000 flamingos in the world, 60,000 of which are in Turkey.