On 5 November Arte broadcast a documentary on the Greater flamingo in an early evening prime-time slot. This film is one in a series of three documentaries made by Laurent Charbonnier speaking about the return of animal species that used to be in decline.
Many of the images in this film were shot in the Camargue, with the participation of several members of the Tour du Valat’s scientific team who are involved in the Greater flamingo protection and monitoring programme in the Mediterranean basin.
In addition to explanations on the ecology and behaviour of this species, we also learn about how Luc Hoffmann, Alan Johnson, Jean-Paul Taris, and a few other stakeholders in the Camargue helped to rebuild the numbers of flamingos by creating an artificial islet in the Fangassier lagoon in the early 1970s. At that time, the species was disappearing from the Mediterranean coastal area in France due to various human causes. Their initiative was crowned with success, and is truly salutary: 80,000 flamingos have hatched there since this time, which has contributed to making the Camargue today an area of capital interest for the species.
This documentary will be broadcasted again on Arte on Monday 19 November at 1:25pm