March 9, 2006 — The pink flamingo is as much an emblem of the Camargue in southeast France as the region's bulls, but if the virulent strain of bird flu were to strike there it would be impossible to protect them, ornithologists say.

"They would die in the thousands," Arnaud Bechet, the orthologist responsible for a research program on flamingos at La Tour du Valat, told AFP.

The marshlands of the Camargue are the flamingos' only regular breeding ground in Europe. Located on the island of Fangassier, the Camargue marshlands have been artificially adapted for France's only permanent colony of the birds.

Around 30,000 flamingos overwinter there. The colony doubles in summer, when the birds feed on the newly planted rice paddies to the great irritation of local farmers.

To screen, vaccinate or confine the flamingos in any way would be an impossible mission, Bechet said.

"We only capture chicks at 75 days old to ring them. To catch adults is very complicated. You can only do it by stretching lassos of nylon thread in shallow water at ground level, but for every 100 to 200 knots you only manage to capture three or four. It is just not practicable."

Italy has been testing for strains of bird flu and the West Nile virus since 2003, particularly in the Po River delta, at a rate of around 150 to 200 birds a year.

"But flamingos are very hardy, not very gregarious (and) very opportunistic," said Bechet, who has observed huge variations and unpredictability in their migration pattern.

"Some spend part of the winter in Tunisia or Sardinia, even Mauritania. Others stay here to save the time it takes to get to the breeding ground but run the risk of being exposed to a cold snap, as in 1985, when the ponds froze over and several thousand birds died," he explained.

But even in the worst case scenario, a few thousand deaths would not threaten the survival of the species, which can live to more than 40 years in the wild.