Italy. Rice fields are destroying flamingos

An unusual pest is threatening the rice crop for risotto in northeastern Italy: flamingos.

The birds are not interested in the crops, but instead dig in the soil for mollusks, algae and insects, the AP reports.

Farmers patrol the fields around the clock in an attempt to scare the birds away. They honk their trucks, bang on barrels and even fire small gas cannons that emit deafening explosions. Most of the time, the noise simply sends them flying into a neighboring rice field.

Local farmer Enrico Fabbri said that crop losses have reached 90% in some of his fields.

The flamingos have arrived from their previous nesting grounds in the nearby Comacchio valleys within a coastal reserve, just south of where the Po River, Italy’s longest, flows into the Adriatic Sea.

According to Roberto Tinarelli, an ornithologist and president of the Emilia-Romagna Ornithologists’ Association, the birds have been there since 2000, after drought in southern Spain forced them to seek nesting grounds further east. Previously, their habitat was limited to lakes in North Africa, parts of Spain and part of the French Camargue region.

No studies have yet been carried out to find out why these flamingos have started to look for food further inland, where farmers flood their fields from late spring to early summer. The only thing that is clear is that the flamingos pose a threat until the fields are drained in a few weeks.

“From an ecological point of view, all this is great, but we must remember that rice cultivation is one of the most expensive, extensive crops,” said Massimo Piva, a rice farmer and vice-president of the local farmers’ confederation.

Ornithologist Tinarelli suggested several solutions to combat flamingos that are more humane and effective than the high-profile efforts currently being made: surrounding rice fields with tall trees or hedges and, better yet, lowering the water level in newly planted rice fields to 5-10 centimeters instead of 30 cm.

“That’s enough for the rice to grow, but it’s decidedly less attractive to flamingos,” he said.

Tags: rice, Italy