0:00
Peter and I are heading to Mexico's Rio Legartos Biosphere Reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula, home to as many as 40,000 American flamingos, one of the largest concentrations of this particular species.
0:14
I can see flamingos like all clustered together over there.
0:19
Our guide is Doctor Frank, originally from Zoo Miami.
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He specializes in studying wild flamingos and the habitats that they love, and what he's found is surprising.
0:31
So this is an actually man-made feature and they harvest salt.
0:35
Rio de Cartos is a salty sanctuary, a protected biosphere reserve and a traditional salt harvesting site where sustainable methods keep flamingos safe and the salt flowing.
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This is a very special place.
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The water will evaporate and creates a hyper saline kind of lagoon, so super salty so it actually alters the life in that water.
0:58
And flamingos love hyper saline pond.
1:03
What brings them here?
1:04
Two big things, food, lots of food.
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And very special mud so they can make their Nets.
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They have a huge variety of things that they'll eat.
1:12
Small crustaceans, little plankton because they're filter feeders.
1:16
Is that true?
1:17
That's where they get their color.
1:18
Why flamingos are pink?
1:19
Yeah.
1:20
So if they didn't have all the special food out here with all the pigments in it, these flamingos would be white.
1:27
Flamingos have a built in filter system.
1:30
They're upside down.
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Beaks sweep through the muck and water slurping up algae, brine shrimp and beta carotene that give them their iconic color.
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This dazzling pink is why a flock of flamingos is called a flamboyance.
1:46
They exploit areas like this where super salty, where a lot of animals just avoid because they can't tolerate the conditions well.
1:53
They can go in there and eat the special food that only grows in them.
1:57
Wild flamingos are thriving here in Mexico, but stateside, it's a different story.
2:04
200 years ago, huge colonies of flamingos thrived along the Florida Bay and the Keys.
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But in the 1800s, they were 100, almost to extinction for their meat and bright pink feathers.
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Since then, they've mostly vanished from Florida except for a few migrating flocks.
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They used to nest in dozens of sites across the Caribbean and now they're narrowed down to like 4 major sites.
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And that makes them very vulnerable.
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And each one of those sites have their own problems.
2:37
It could be invasive species; it could be land development.
2:40
So reestablishing them on the mainland of the United States adds to the resiliency of this species.
2:48
To better understand and preserve the American Flamingo, we're joining a team of research experts from the Biosphere Reserve.
2:56
Aura lo estamos haciendo some programas de conservacion ESO ESO radio transmissor que Nos ba deir donde este flamenco como este flamenco vasorita tenemos bastantes flamencos pero pueste Nos poemos A caba muira pios sinos cuidamos sinos protechemos sevana Aqua.
3:20
There's that mud.
3:23
First we need to wade across a slimy monkey obstacle course.
3:28
It's not easy to move through here.
3:31
Oh, it's getting deep, though.
3:35
Our goal is to carefully catch a Flamingo and attach a small GPS tracker.
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Our guides know just what to do.
3:50
The GPS tracker will tell us if the tagged Flamingo ever migrates near Florida and more importantly, if it nests there.
3:58
It's a delicate mission with the trap set; we keep out of sight from the flock and hope for a pink payoff.
4:05
Have to be really quiet because around this little island is the Flamingo team, and they're actually hurting flamingos closer to us.
4:15
Oh, yes, I see it.
4:15
This is walking really slow.
4:20
So this is so cool.
4:28
So far.
4:29
They go nowhere here.
4:31
Yeah.
4:31
Very alert, though.
4:33
Right now, if you just have one nervous one, they all take off.
4:38
Yeah, he looks like he's gone.
