We’re coming up on the one-and-a-half-year anniversary of flamingos coming to the Indian River at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is cause for celebration. The unanswered question is are they here to stay.
Four American Flamingos, blown into Florida by Hurricane Idalia, first appeared in the Indian River in December 2023, and they’ve been there ever since. The number of flamingos that have joined them around the refuge has varied over the past 18 months, surpassing 30 at times.
When I visited them last weekend, there were still six hanging around Bird Island.
Flamingos used to thrive and breed in Florida back in the 1800s, but they were wiped out by hunting and the plumage trade. Here’s a snippet from a story in the Fort Myers Press from 1885: “The red flamingo was once well known in Florida, but he is known no longer. He has been hunted to death and has totally disappeared. The hunter will shoot the last one, knowing it to be the last, with just as much eagerness as he would the first one.”
The last verified flamingo nest in Florida was recorded in the 1890. Up until the “Pink Wave” of flamingos brought here by Idalia, many the birds’ sightings in the state had been attributed migrating ones from the Bahamas, Cuba and Mexico or ones who escaped from the flamboyance introduced at South Florida’s Hialeah Park Race Track in the 1930s.
Fortunately, American Flamingos appear to be having a renaissance in the Sunshine State right now. Let’s hope the ones in the Indian River will be around for a long time — or at least until their two-year anniversary this December.
