Gratitude Expressed as Flamingo Chicks Fly to New Home, but Support Still Needed.

One of the Saam Staan Administrators was fortunate enough to film the journey to Durban on Monday where Flamingo chicks were delivered to uShaka Marine World.

https://www.facebook.com/SaamStaanKby/videos/2403613136376247/?__xts__[0]=68.ARCWvHIxFDQgMeE2Y4Liq8EcnkCJsrgeZljg84dmGBUrEeteOUnBOIj6p21_1MouOcfMTJF2AnIzxLAetJd_6V40cCTfYYjjrRD7xk8TAWxO9DWq2K7-Z98QLX6EC58XT6lHS0bpoavl1O6MjeqSHv2sEByvUM29sI8DSLIDkKlpMxZIr0RtuVDUiq3PcBcOi4pGm39djqwf11SPC4TpWcm8AU-hUvfuzAi1FcVriiGMKUG4NjYX-TYpUH4RRkmvKvM3S39aoNHPnfsjE2QLReEVUXE_agwyN7kLD1lAmGcM6UvXpiq8CaukU2gAOWQDX98o8H4oczuQNRCZnZUJ43KFGqfdSxZTX4raIg&__tn__=-R

video credit: Ronsard Allen & Craig Van Rensburg

Staan Saam Kimberley have shared the clip above to capture the journey thus far, saying: “From feeding to boxing to flying to the SEA!! It’s summed up for all our supporters in one video!!  They also expressed gratitude for all the assistance they have received:

“Thank you to our volunteers, the Kimberley SPCA, all the donors, KEM-JV for the flights, Department of Environmental Affairs and Nature Conservation for your help with the permits and each and every one of you who support this project!

Thanks also to the South African expats who have contributed to the Flamingo Rescue Mission, but fundraising remains a crucial issue.

Yesterday morning 2 daring helpers have agreed to consume flamingo food in a bid to challenge people to make donations to the Kimberley SPCA.

They posted the following challenge on their Facebook page:

Good morning to all our supporters, volunteers and those following the Flamingo Rescue. Since  our Inspector, Mario van der Westhuizen, has promised to drink a whole cup of the flamingo food liquid for every R10 000 that is collected for the Flamingo Rescue Project, we have since been informed of another challenge by Craig van Rensburg from Saam Staan Kimberley NPO….Craig has promised Linja Allen that he would drink 1 standard shooter glass of flamingo food for every R2 000 that is collected for the Flamingo Project from today on. We are still calling it, The Smoothy Challenge. The food mixture includes raw prawns, raw shrimp, Nestum, hardboiled egg yokes, Beefee and other oils & vitamins ? So let’s get those amounts of money coming in! Mario and Craig need to be fed! Every cent counts

If you would like to contribute to the on-going cost of the rescue, here are the banking details:

Kimberley SPCA
Standard Bank
Account Nr: 040 057 607
Branch Code: 050 002
Ref: Smoothy Challenge

Today the challenge was accepted!:

https://www.facebook.com/SaamStaanKby/videos/549246598915987/?permPage=1

******

Poor rainfall and low dam levels are affecting birdlife around the country.

In further news Reuters reports:

Rescuers are moving hundreds of dehydrated Lesser Flamingo chicks from their breeding ground at a drought-stricken South African dam to a bird sanctuary in Cape Town, to save them from death by starvation and lack of water.

Their birthplace, Kamfers Dam in the Northern Cape, is one of only three breeding grounds for the famously pink birds in Southern Africa, the other two being in Namibia and Botswana, according to researcher Katta Ludynia.

The rescued chicks take three to four months to fledge, and it is not yet clear whether they will eventually be released back into the wild in Cape Town or transported back hundreds of km (miles) to their home in Kimberley, she said.

“There are still several thousand birds breeding in the dam in areas that still have water,” said Katta Ludynia, research manager at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB).

“It now depends on the water levels whether these birds will pull through.”

Ludynia said the sanctuary was caring for around 550 chicks, most of them dehydrated when they first arrived on Monday after being abandoned by parents who went off in search of food.

The chicks are being moved to the sanctuary by plane and road.

SANCCOB is one of several centres across South Africa caring for around 2,000 chicks that were rescued from the dam.

Although it hosts the biggest population of lesser flamingoes in southern Africa, Kamfers Dam, situated to the north of Kimberley, is often dry and depends mainly on rainwater. It also gets some water from a sewerage works that releases water into its wetlands.

“The dam in Kimberley is so important because it is manageable, so we can secure the water level there and that might be the only site the flamingoes can breed in Southern Africa, if the drought continues in other areas,” Ludynia said.

(Reporting by Mike Hutchings and Sumaya Hisham; writing by Wendell Roelf; editing by James Macharia, William Maclean)

#flamingos #saamstaankimberley #savetheflamingos #birds