LARNACA, Cyprus (PA) – Conservatives in Cyprus are urging authorities to extend the hunting ban to the entire coastal network of salt lakes amid concerns that migrating flamingos could swallow lethal amounts of lead pellets.
Martin Hellicar, director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos risk ingesting small pellets that lie on the lake bed while feeding. Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion, but cannot distinguish between pebbles and lead pellets.
“Last year, we had dozens of flamingo losses,” Hellicar said.
Cyprus is a key migration stop for many types of birds flying from Africa to Europe. Larnaca Salt Lake, a network of four-lake wetlands, typically hosts up to 15,000 colder flamingos on the southern coast of the eastern Mediterranean island nation. I stay through the winter and leave in March. Other waterfowl that frequent the lake include ducks, widows and gulls.
Hunting is prohibited in most of the salt lake, but hunters are still allowed to shoot ducks at the southern tip of the net.
The government’s game and wildlife service says 96 flamingos were found dead in the wetlands of Larnaca Salt Lake in the first two months of last year as a result of lead poisoning. Cypriot Veterinary Service official Panayiotis Constantinou, who performed autopsies on flamingos, said the lead in the pellets had poisoned the birds.
The high number of deaths is mainly attributed to the heavy winter rains of two years ago, which stirred up the lake sediment and removed the embedded lead from the fire.
A sports shooting range near the northern tip of the lake closed almost 18 years ago, and authorities have organized a cleaning of lead pellets in the lake bed.
But Hellicar says the cleanup was apparently incomplete. A European Union-funded study is underway to identify where significant amounts of lead pellets remain so that they can be removed. Preliminary results of the study showed “very high” lead levels in the southern tip of the wetland, and continued hunting of ducks there could aggravate the problem, Hellicar said.
“The problem is pronounced,” he said. “The danger is real for flamingos and other birds using the area.”
Cyprus Hunting Federation official Alexandros Loizides disagrees, saying hunting in a 200-meter northern area is not a problem due to the limited number of hunters. He said he was unaware of any flamingo deaths in the area and was damaging pesticide and fertilizer leaks from nearby farms to create any pollution problems that could affect wildlife.
“I think the effect of hunting there is very small on the specific part of the lake,” Loizides said. “It would be a shame for hunters to lose the only area where hunting is allowed near wetlands.”
A ban on the use of lead pellets near wetlands has been in place in Cyprus for several years. A similar ban at EU level came into force last month, but conservatives believe the laws are not enforced enough.
Pantelis Hadjiyeros, head of the Hunting and Wildlife Service, said it was less important to ban hunting in the area than to persuade hunters to stop using lead pellets.
“People should be told that the use of lead pellets is prohibited near wetlands and that only steel pellets are allowed,” Hadjiyeros told the Associated Press.