Garfield
08-19-07, - 05:05 PM
French alarmed as flamingos leave
By Petru Clej
BBC News
A rare colony of flamingos has left the marshy Camargue region of southern France since a strike at a saltworks deprived them of their breeding habitat.
For 30 years thousands of the iconic birds have nested on an artificial island in the delta of the River Rhone. It sits in a lagoon called Etang du Fangassier.
But since March, salt water from the Mediterranean has not been pumped into the lagoon, because staff at the local saltworks have been on a partial strike against redundancies.
By Petru Clej
BBC News
A rare colony of flamingos has left the marshy Camargue region of southern France since a strike at a saltworks deprived them of their breeding habitat.
For 30 years thousands of the iconic birds have nested on an artificial island in the delta of the River Rhone. It sits in a lagoon called Etang du Fangassier.
But since March, salt water from the Mediterranean has not been pumped into the lagoon, because staff at the local saltworks have been on a partial strike against redundancies.