Turkey: Drone footage shows thousands of dead flamingoes, investigation on

Thousands of flamingoes were found dead in drone footage captured above the dry bed of Turkey's Lake Tuz. This has alarmed environmentalists and has prompted authorities to investigate the cause.

The drone footage from the area was captured on Wednesday (July 14). The footage shows hundreds of flaminglets partly buried in dried parts of Lake Tuz. Lake Tuz is in Turkey's Konya province.

Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli told reporters that initial analysis showed the Flamingoes were not poisoned.

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Environmentalists say that agricultural irrigation practices in the region along with Climate Change and drought caused the deaths.

As per a report published by Turkish environmental foundation TEMA in 2020, the annual water reserve in central province of Konya's close basin was 4.5 billion cubic metres, while the consumption reached 6.5 billion cubic metres. Environmentalist and wildlife photographer Fahri Tunc said the canal that was built to deliver water to Lake Tuz is redirected for agricultural irrigation.

"This is the irrigation canal that comes from Konya. It needs to deliver water to Lake Tuz. As you can see, the water is not coming through. It stopped," Tunc said.

Statistics show that 5000-10,000 flaminglets are born in Lake Tuz every year.

Tunc said, this year, only 5,000 eggs have hatched and most of the birds died while seeking water on the surface of partially dried lake.

President of Doga (Nature) Association, Dicle Tuba Kilic said the only way to prevent mass flamingo deaths is to change the agricultural irrigation methods in region.

Pakdemirli said the deaths are not related to the irrigation practices in the region.

"I want to stress that there is no direct or indirect connection between this incident and the wells in the area or the agricultural irrigation," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)