Africa

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Nairobi University ecology lecturer Warui Karanja blames a recent steep drop in the legendary pink flamingo population of Lake Nakaru National Park, featured in the film Out of Africa, on the construction of a sewage treatment plant that stopped the flow of effluent into the lake, which in turn fed blue-green algae, the flamingos’ main food. The 18-squaremile wetlands formerly supported more than a million flamingos, but now has just 10,000, according to Karanja. Other investigators blame well-drilling, which has lowered the Lake Nakaru water table, exacerbating the effects of periodic drought.