France’s flamingos under threat?

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00:00Shimmering plains and lagoons as far as the eye can see,

00:05in the southwesterly corner of France's Mediterranean coastline,

00:09these elegant silhouettes streak across the horizon,

00:12an iconic part of the landscape.

00:14Some 5,000 pink flamingos live in and around these salt marshes,

00:18performing their nightly ballet for these delighted tourists,

00:22captivated by the natural spectacle.

00:26It's so cool.

00:28He's having a rest, a scratch. He's eating, now drinking.

00:33They're so endearing, their colours, the way they fly and the way they move in a group.

00:41Benoit Souffanant has been a nature guide in this region for 12 years.

00:45He's an expert in flamingo behaviour.

00:47Their diet, small varieties of seaweed, little shrimp, planktonite,

00:51are readily available in large quantities, and that's what they eat.

00:56Yet this diet's part of a delicate balancing act.

00:59As global warming causes water levels to rise,

01:02the fear is that these plains could flood,

01:04submerging the landscape and making it uninhabitable for the birds.

01:08If the lagoon disappears, their habitat disappears.

01:11In ecological circles, we call them an umbrella species.

01:14If we want to protect them, we have to protect their environment.

01:18Attempts to protect these areas are already underway, like here in Aiguemorte.

01:23Every day, Valentin Fangier patrols the salt marshes,

01:27making sure the conditions are optimal.

01:29It's now the only site in France where flamingos come to reproduce.

01:34If the water level is too high, then it can drown the nests,

01:38which slows down the flamingos' reproduction.

01:40We also survey the salinity levels of the water

01:43because they feed on little brine shrimp,

01:46and they are only abundant at a certain level of salinity,

01:49so we keep an eye on all of that.

01:54Vital work which helps scientists who are already looking to the future.

01:58They hope to keep the flamingos here on France's southern coast,

02:01and for that they have to be apprehended when very young.

02:05We're trying to create a closed circle so that none of the chicks can escape.

02:10Advancing step by step, these volunteers are working together

02:13to count the baby flamingos, collecting data for a scientific research centre.

02:21The yearly census is a delicate operation.

02:26We try to do it in a way that's not too stressful for them,

02:29and get them to stop moving so much.

02:32Once they're secured, the flamingos are kitted out with these rings,

02:35which act like an ID card, a unique code for each bird.

02:39This lets us follow them remotely when they migrate,

02:42so of the 450 birds that we're tagging today,

02:45we'll be able to know over the next 10, 15 years where they've been,

02:49if they went abroad, or if they came back to nest at the same site.

02:53It's a way to follow their peregrinations, especially if this habitat disappears.

02:58It's important to ask ourselves these questions now

03:01so that we can start tracking their movements straight away,

03:04and if we need to, to recreate the lagoons, to migrate the salt marshes.

03:08We're right next to the sea here,

03:10so all this ecosystem is going to be under the sea in a few decades.

03:14According to the latest scientific studies,

03:16one third of the Mediterranean's coastal regions are currently at risk.

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