Conservationists want authorities to extend a hunting ban across the Larnaca Salt Lake network to prevent migrating flamingos from swallowing lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.
Martin Hellicar, director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos are at risk of ingesting the tiny pellets lying on the lakebed as they feed.
Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion but can’t distinguish between pebbles and the lead pellets.
“Last year, we had tens of losses of flamingos,” Hellicar told the Associated Press.
Cyprus is a key stop on the migration path for many birds flying from Africa to Europe.
The Larnaca Salt Lake, a wetlands network of four lakes, typically welcomes as many as 15,000 flamingos from colder climates.
They stay through the winter and leave in March. Other waterfowl frequenting the lake include ducks, waders, and seagulls.
Hunting is banned around most of the Salt Lake, but hunters are still allowed to shoot ducks in the network’s southern tip.
The Game and Fauna Service says in the first two months of last year, 96 flamingos were found dead in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands due to lead poisoning.
Cyprus Veterinary Services official Panayiotis Constantinou, who has conducted autopsies on flamingos, said lead from the pellets poisoned the birds.
The high number of deaths is mainly attributed to heavy winter rain two years ago that stirred up the lake sediment and dislodged embedded lead shot.
A sport shooting range near the lake’s northern tip closed nearly 18 years ago, and authorities organized a clean-up of lead pellets in the lakebed there.
But Hellicar says the clean-up was apparently incomplete.
A European Union-funded study is underway to identify where significant amounts of lead pellets remain so they can be removed.
The study’s preliminary results showed “very high” lead levels in the wetland’s southern tip, and continued duck hunting could compound the problem, Hellicar said.
“The problem is pronounced,” he said. “The danger is real for the flamingos and other birds that use the area.”
Cyprus Hunting Federation official Alexandros Loizides disagrees, saying that hunting in a 200-metre northern swathe is not a problem due to the limited number of hunters.
He said he’s unaware of any flamingo deaths in the area and faults pesticide and fertilizer runoff from nearby farms for creating any pollution problems hurting wildlife.
“I think the effect of hunting there is very small on the specific part of the lake,” said Loizides.
“It’d be a shame for hunters to lose the only area where hunting is permitted near wetlands.”
A ban on the use of lead pellets near wetlands has been in force in Cyprus for several years.
Pantelis Hadjiyeros, head of the Game and Fauna Service, said it’s less important to ban hunting in the area than to convince hunters to stop using shells with lead pellets.
“It should be drummed into people that the use of lead pellets is prohibited near wetlands and that only steel pellets are permitted,” Hadjiyeros told AP. (source AP)
