By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Conservationists in Cyprus have moved to expand a hunting ban throughout a coastal salt lake network, amid concerns that migrating flamingos could swallow lethal quantities of lead shotgun pellets.
Martin Hellicar, the director of Birdlife Cyprus, said flamingos were at risk of ingesting the tiny pellets lying on the lakebed as they fed. Like other birds, flamingos swallow small pebbles to aid digestion but cannot distinguish between pebbles and the lead pellets.
“Last year we had tens of losses of flamingos,” Hellicar said.
NatureNews reports that Cyprus is a key stop on the migration path for many types of birds flying from Africa to Europe.
Hunting is banned around most of the salt lake, but hunters are still allowed to shoot ducks in the network’s southern tip.
The government’s game and fauna service said that in the first two months of last year, 96 flamingos were found dead in the Larnaca Salt Lake wetlands as a result of lead poisoning.
Panayiotis Constantinou, a Cyprus veterinary services official 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 ban on the use of lead pellets near wetlands has been in force in Cyprus for several years. A similar, EU-wide ban took effect last month but conservationists believe the laws are not being enforced properly.
Pantelis Hadjiyeros, the head of the game and fauna service, said it was 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 said.