CONSERVATION
Magnificent sight
DIONNE BUNSHA
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Photographer Ashima Narain explores the strange phenomenon of the flamingos of Sewri Bay with "In The Pink".
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Photo: Neeraj Chawla
Unusual migrants: The flamingos started to arrive about 15 years ago.
SEWRI BAY is a dilapidated old port area with crumbling buildings, factories, ship breaking and scrap yards in the heart of Mumbai. Through the haze, you can see a power plant, two oil refineries, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Rashtriya Chemical Fertilizer factory, across the bay. A grimy grey picture if not for the flamingos. The 20,000-odd flamingos are a surprisingly bright dash of colour in this dreary, polluted bay. These nomadic birds fly into the metropolis after the monsoon and leave just before it. It is believed that they go to Kutch to breed during the rainy season.
What could possibly attract hundreds of flamingos to a bay filled with chemicals and sewage, cordoned off by industrial plants? Photographer Ashima Narain set out to explore this strange phenomenon with her first film, "In The Pink", the only documentary ever made on the flamingos of Sewri Bay.
No laws
"In Mumbai, we have this magnificent wildlife spectacle, yet most people have no idea about it," says Ashima. "I wanted to try to let others know that our city offers more than just movies and malls. If it were anywhere else in the world, Sewri would have been a popular tourist site." But most Mumbaikars don't know there are flamingos in their city. And there are no conservation laws to protect the site.
It could be that Mumbai's pollution somehow attracted the flamingos to the bay. "This situation defies most conservationist logic. A lot of algae is produced in the bay due to the warm water effluents being emitted into it as well as domestic wastes that contain phosphorus. Algae is the staple food for flamingos, so the pollution has created abundant feeding opportunities," Ashima explains.
Of the six species of flamingos, two are found in Sewri — the Lesser and the Greater flamingo. The Greater flamingo stands tall at four feet, while at 2 feet, the Lesser is the smallest flamingo species. "In terms of uniqueness, the lesser have such specific feeding requirements that they are found in very few places in the world (mainly Eurasia and Africa). Where they are found they are always in huge congregations; so they look like massive pink waves," says Ashima. All flamingos eat algae, which contain a carotenoid pigment that turns their feathers pink. But the lesser flamingos eat only algae and other near-microscopic material. And this is precisely what Sewri has in abundance.
The flamingos weren't always part of Mumbai's skyline. They started to arrive only 15 years ago. But the pollutants that attract them to this city of migrants may also be slowly poisoning them. "The Thane creek used to be lined with factories that spewed out wastes laden with heavy metals. Many of these heavy metals persist in this environment and there is an uptake in the algae. So we can imagine what could potentially happen to the flamingos if they keep eating this toxic algae," says Ashima.
New threat
And now there is a new threat to Mumbai's pink populace. A bridge is being built right through flamingo territory to connect Sewri to Navi Mumbai. It may cut through the mudflats — their feeding ground — and might also disturb their flight path. Wildlife groups have been demanding a re-alignment of the bridge away from the flamingo's habitat, but there hasn't yet been any decision.
Besides Mumbai, flamingos are also found in Kutch (Gujarat), Sambar (Rajasthan), Chilika Lake (Orissa) and Point Calimere (Tamil Nadu). In Mumbai, the main problem is the lack of any scientific research on this rare phenomenon. No one knows where the birds are coming from, their flight path, or the effect of heavy metal toxins.
Testing water samples
While researching for "In The Pink", Ashima spoke to flamingo specialists around the world to try and understand what was happening in Mumbai. She also initiated testing of water samples to find out pollution levels. "We looked at the problems flamingos face in parts of Africa due to pollution and drew parallels with Mumbai to see what the future might hold," she says. "This is why it's essential to study these birds. Hopefully the documentary will show even people who aren't interested in flamingos that humans can and will get affected unless we clean up our act."
Working on this urban wildlife documentary had its share of adventures. While shooting sequences of the flamingos' courting dance, Ashima got so excited that she often didn't realise the tide was coming in. Once, she found herself knee deep in the muck at the mudflats, trying desperately to keep her camera and tripod safe from the dirt. When her assistant tried to come to her rescue, he started sinking in the mud. Meanwhile, a crowd of truckers and workers gathered to watch. Finally, a child came and took her equipment so she could crawl out of the mud.
The search for flamingos outside Sewri took her on wild goose chases along the highways outside Mumbai, peering across bridges for a dash of pink. She's waded into the sewage-filled water to collect samples for testing. She also tried to arrange for the Bombay Natural History Society's experts to get the flamingos ringed so that they could be studied. But it was difficult to get to these elusive birds. The ringing experts kept sinking in the mud.
Ready to fly
Since Ashima wanted total creative control, she decided to make the film independently with her sister Ruchi Narain's company, Rewind Films, as producer. Later, Discovery Channel picked up the telecast rights. The film has been chosen for the Japan Wildlife Film Festival in August. "Our ambition with this film was really two-fold: one was to create awareness about what we have in the heart of Mumbai. The second was to initiate more investigation into this phenomenon that can be taken up by scientists and people more qualified than I am," says Ashima. "So far, we have garnered a lot of interest from scientists within and outside India."
"In The Pink" makes its first flight on Discovery Channel on May 3 at 8 p.m. But the journey has just begun. There are still miles to go to ensure that these unusual migrants to Mumbai keep returning to brighten up the bay.
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