Pink Flamingos Return to South Florida via Hurricanes

Florida’s oceans slip between turquoise and emerald, its sunsets streak yellow and orange, and its politics shift from blue to purple to red. But pink is Florida’s favorite color. From the cheesy, plastic pink flamingo lawn ornaments and Elvis’ sleek, Pink Flamingo Cadillac in the 1950s, to ‘Miami Vice pink’ and the emblem on Florida’s lottery tickets in the 1980s, pink flamingo-inspired kitsch is an enduring legacy of the Sunshine State.

Even when the real thing had vanished.

Pink flamingos have been a staple of Florida’s landscape for decades

Pink flamingos were hunted to the brink of extinction in Florida for the then-fashionable plume trade up north a century ago. A few pink flamingos remained in Florida tucked away inside the environs of the Everglades, rarely seen, while the bulk of the remaining birds migrated to Cuba, Mexico, and the Yucatan Peninsula.

READ MORE: Is it time to make the flamingo Florida’s state bird?

The population of pink flamingos outside of America rebounded over time into the tens of thousands. Now, hundreds of thousands are estimated in colonies throughout the greater Caribbean.

Several hundred of those were blown off-course by Hurricane Idalia last year, and to a lesser extent by Hurricane Ian in 2022, either landing or crash-landing throughout South Florida.

Hurricanes have brought pink flamingos back to South Florida

And they’ve stayed. That includes nearly two dozen pink flamingos now at home in Pine Island.

“This event is unprecedented,” said Jerry Lorenz, who tracks the pink flamingos for Florida Audubon. “We’re talking more than 100 flamingos here. Will they stay? Will they leave? We want to know.”

“It’s hard to talk about the Everglades in 2024 without talking about flamingos. We were excited to see that some of the Hurricane Idalia flamingos seem to have stuck around.

— Erika Zambello, spokeswoman for Audubon Florida

The resurgence of the bright flamingos in Florida is seen as a positive sign of adaptation to changing environmental conditions, including the increased water flows due to the ongoing Everglades restoration.

*A few hardy species like brown pelicans and whimbrels are strong enough to take on hurricane-speed winds. Some flew right through Hurricane Ian’s 150-mph swirling winds and its pelting sideways rain and lived to squawk about it.

Whatever the trigger, many birds sense the impending doom and move into literal flight or fight mode: they either fly away or find somewhere to assume crash positions.

“We were worried when our favorite species failed to reappear in the weeks following Hurricane Ian in September 2022, wondering if a worse fate had befallen them.

— Audrey Albrecht, shorebird biologist with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation

The fear was the 150-mph winds of such a huge storm had simply blown birds of all types to the ground, killing or maiming them on a species-wide scale. And that happened to some.

Pink flamingos have been a staple of Florida’s landscape for decades

Flamingos aren’t that hardy but are special due to their coloring, which is pink due to their diet rich in beta-carotene, a red-orange pigment found in blue-green algae, brine fly larvae, and brine shrimp.

If the birds ate other things they would be dull gray.

Whether regular pink, garden pink, or closer to crimson glory, pink flamingos are a sight to behold.

Pink flamingos are a sight to behold