Wildlife management specialist Rodrigo Migoya likes to recall a crisis that occurred in 2000, the year after the group he founded, Niños y Crías (Kids and Critters), began banding flamingoes in coastal wetlands near the city where he lives, Mérida, in Yucatán, an area he calls “the most important breeding site for flamingoes” and crucial to their wellbeing worldwide.
“A jaguar came into the flamingo colony. They were nesting on the edge of a mangrove forest instead of in the middle of a lagoon, where they would have been protected. It killed a few flamingoes, which normally causes the whole colony to leave.”
It was a perilous moment, yet resulting developments were ultimately positive. Members of Migoya’s flamingo protection group started camping near the flamingoes to keep the jaguar away.
“There was already a crush of chicks so the adults didn’t completely abandon the area. However, there were a lot of abandoned eggs, so we took a thousand and started incubating them. We raised 200 chicks that way. But it was a lot of effort and expensive, so we decided it was better to restore the island to keep away jaguars and floods, and let the adult flamingoes, instead of us, do all the work of raising chicks.”
Now, 15 years and a lot of restoration work later, observers such as water expert Étienne von Bertrab call NYC’s accomplishments “amazing.” And, even though the group again finds itself at a critical juncture, Migoya can point to many observable results achieved by his nongovernmental, nonprofit group.
“We’ve seen more results with flamingoes than with our educational efforts,” he said in excellent English. (Migoya, who is from Mexico City, got a PhD in wildlife management at the State University of New York in Syracuse.)
“For example, in 1999 when we started, 4,200 chicks were born but now the number has grown to 23,000 chicks a year. And their habitat is in pretty good shape because of our restoration of the wetlands.”
Although Migoya lamented that because of a recent institutional funding cut, educational efforts are NYC’s weak link at the moment, he said he fully understands their importance. He had learned from his earlier years studying ducks and geese and working for the government at the nearby Ria Lagartos Natural Reserve, that all the bird research in the world is useless if people are not willing to protect birds.
“So from the beginning, we geared NYC to environmental education. We’ve worked at building pride among the local people — pride in the area where they were born and pride in the beautiful species here.”
Migoya and other staffers developed educational projects involving schools. “We go to schools and give presentations and we have a research project where two volunteer instructors commit to taking kids out once a month to observe and count birds and then input the information into a program called eBird that was designed by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.”
Migoya noted that one distinguished bird researcher, Paul Butler, saw that ordinary people get bored with conferences and would be more attracted by something fun. So he encouraged workers at NYC to write and popularize songs about birds.
“Now we have two songs about flamingoes and one about the Yucatán wren,” Migoya said.
He said that the efforts aimed at children were so well received that local women asked if they could get involved too. Thus, the educational 
effort spilled over into necessary restoration work.
“Lots of tourists visit the Celestun and Ria Lagartos wetlands to see flamingoes. We saw that the wetlands were dirty with plastic bags and bottles. That wasn’t good for the birds or for tourism.”
So NYC organized three co-ops managed by local women who use tricycles to go around town getting plastic, cardboard, aluminum and metal. “For this to work, the bottling companies have to contribute by encouraging the recycling,” noted Migoya, “and sometimes they do. So the price for recycled plastic went up from one peso per kilo to 3.50. That’s a concrete result.
“We also developed billboards to educate people about where water comes from,” he went on. “Most people say it comes from the faucet but of course it comes from the mountains and forests,” he said, noting that in Yucatán, a lot of fresh water comes from a unique network of underground springs called cenotes.
“CONAFOT, the National Commission for Forestry, has a program to pay farmers to keep their forest land untouched” so that water can circulate through the cenotes and ultimately to the flamingoes.
Of all NYC’s efforts, its flamingo banding program is the most well known. The annual placing on 500 young flamingoes’ legs of highly visible yellow bands with black letters is done on one day only, in late August or early September when chicks are 90 days old, at the last minute before they can fly. NYC assembles a large group of volunteers from Mexico and other countries, some of whom pay in order to participate. The intricate shepherding and capture of the fledgling flamingoes is carried out in a carefully orchestrated maneuver for which participants receive training.
“Our bands were first spotted on flamingoes in Florida in 2002,” said Migoya, “and we’ve had reports they were seen in Texas, Cuba and the Grand Cayman Islands.”
Although Migoya was once fond of working with ducks, he says that now flamingoes have won his heart. “They’re similar to ducks but they have more social rituals and a very elaborate courtship. They get together in large groups and do a sort of ballet that stretches over several months, from November until April. I’ve been living in Yucatán for 20 years and I really like it,” he said, calling the state the safest in Mexico.
Now, however, the cut in funding has landed NYC at another watershed moment. Although the group boasts an array of results in research, banding, habitat restoration and education, Migoya says that the education component — which, ironically, he considers the most necessary — is the one threatened by the cut.
“One of our principal institutional sponsors stopped funding us this year in order to assist another area. So now we need monetary support from individuals more than normally and, of course, many small donations together can be very good.”
He encourages people to donate online via Paypal, to fill out a volunteer form, to subscribe to NYC’s blog and receive invitations to attend events. (See www.ninosycrias.org under the headings “Participa” and “Blog.”)
“People can come on vacation and participate in banding,” he said. “Many people realize that the more species we protect, the better off we humans will be,” he added.
Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (999) 925-3947. See www.ninosycrias.org.