Florida’s flamingos disappeared decades ago. That may soon change.
As conditions improve in the Everglades, habitat configurations are almost exactly right for a resurgence of the American flamingo.
When a wild flamingo showed up between two air strips at the Naval Air Station Key West on the southern tip of Florida in 2015, pilots feared a collision every day the bird stuck around.
Flamingos usually choose habitats as far from humans as possible. But not this one. Nothing airport employees did could spook the light-pink bird into leaving its unusual choice of habitat. It eventually took a team of experts to capture and remove the animal, which they dubbed Conchy. The male American, or Caribbean, flamingo was taken to Zoo Miami, where researchers discovered he was seriously ill, inflicted with liver damage from feeding in a polluted body of water near a restaurant.
Of the six
