210 On the trail of vanishing birds 



Progress has likewise been made elsewhere. In Yucatan, where 

 we have had the personal interest and efficient help of the Roche 

 family of Merida, a definite and impressive increase in numbers 

 can be noted. There are still difficulties. As this is written the 

 flamingo continues to be listed as a game bird in Mexico. Before 

 our cooperative efforts with Joaquin and Roger Roche began, less 

 than six years ago, there was no protection whatever, and natives 

 could raid the nesting colonies as they pleased. Fishermen from 

 settlements like Rio Lagartos and El Cuyo, roaming along the 

 outer coast looking for turtles or other fair game, helped them- 

 selves to young flamingos or fresh eggs whenever they felt like it. 

 But this is now, and we trust from now on, a thing of the past. 

 Recently a new threat has appeared, both here and at Bonaire, 

 across the Caribbean. Tourists, chiefly Americans, are reaching 

 these once remote places in greater numbers each year. In the 

 summer of 1955, the Rio Lagartos colony, harassed by heavy rains 

 and high tides, nested much later than is usually their custom. In 

 addition, they moved to Isla de Yamalcan, which is to the east of 

 the fishing village of El Cuyo, and a difficult location to guard 

 with the facilities at our command. Still, two wardens were placed 

 on duty, but they were new men and not broken in to the job. It 

 is a more readily accessible place than the nesting sites farther 

 west and there were numbers of visitors, many of them American 

 tourists. One such group persuaded the wardens to permit them to 

 photograph the colony from a tower they built close by, and these 

 activities were a sufficiently disturbing influence to cause the loss 

 of many small young, and unhatched eggs. A bad season was the 

 net result. 



At Bonaire, in the Netherlands Antilles, in spite of the best 

 efforts of the local government officials and of Mr. Gerharts, who 

 has done so much to obtain protection, tourists from Curasao 

 made their way to the colony, and by walking up to the nest 

 mounds to take photographs, caused most of the adults to desert. 

 After a number of years of hope and effort it looked at the begin- 

 ning of 1955 as if the Bonaire colony was going to make a real 

 comeback. In forty-five minutes all this was undone by a few 

 unthinking people, and we can only trust that the birds will return 



