Are There Wild Flamingos in Florida? Native Birds Returning

A Florida native that vanished

The American flamingo is the only flamingo species that occurs naturally in North America. In the 19th century, naturalists such as John James Audubon described flocks of flamingos along Florida’s southern coast. Some reports describe flocks of hundreds, and occasionally more than a thousand birds, around Cape Sable, Florida Bay and the Florida Keys.

Those flocks did not last. Flamingos were shot for food and for their pink feathers during the plume trade of the late 1800s, when wading birds across Florida were killed in huge numbers to decorate hats. The last large flock was reported shortly after 1900. For most of the 20th century, only a handful of wild flamingos were seen in Florida in any year, and there were long periods with almost none.

Museum collections hold a few flamingo eggs said to have been collected in the Florida Keys in the 1880s, and one early report describes flamingos standing among “stumps” that may have been mud nests. Together these records suggest flamingos once nested in Florida.

Wild birds or escapees?

In the 20th century, the flamingo became a symbol of Florida mostly through hotels, souvenirs and captive birds. The flamingos at Hialeah Park racetrack near Miami, a captive flock kept since the 1930s, were famous, and birds sometimes escaped from collections.

Because of this, wildlife agencies long assumed that any flamingo seen in the wild in Florida was probably an escaped captive. For years the species was treated as non-native in the state, and wild birds were easily dismissed.

That view has changed. A study published in 2018 in the ornithological journal The Condor, by a team that included researchers from Zoo Miami, reviewed more than a century of records. It found that flamingo sightings in Florida had increased since the 1950s, that flock sizes had grown, especially from about 1990 onward, and that the birds were most likely wild flamingos from Caribbean and Mexican colonies rather than escapees.

How do we know they are wild?

Several lines of evidence point to wild birds:

• A flamingo banded as a chick in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula was later seen in Everglades National Park.
• A young flamingo nicknamed “Conchy”, found abandoned in Key West and fitted with a tracking device, stayed in Florida Bay year-round among other flamingos.
• In 2014 a flock of more than 140 flamingos gathered at a stormwater treatment area south of Lake Okeechobee, the biggest Florida flock in about a century.
• Flamingo numbers have also recovered at Caribbean colonies, so more birds are available to wander north.

The study concluded that flamingos are native to Florida, that at least some live there year-round, and that they should be managed as a native species. Florida’s state wildlife agency, which had listed the flamingo as non-native, dropped that label in 2018.

Hurricane Idalia and the 2023 flamingo fallout

In late August 2023, Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend coast and caused one of the most remarkable flamingo events in US history. The storm swept up American flamingos, probably birds from the Yucatán Peninsula that were flying across the Gulf of Mexico, and carried them north.

In the days after the storm, birdwatchers reported flamingos across Florida and in many other states, including Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Wisconsin. Most of these storm-blown birds later headed south again, but some stayed in Florida, adding to the small resident group.

Hurricanes have carried flamingos off course before, but never in such numbers. The event drew national attention and fresh interest in whether flamingos might one day breed in Florida again.

Where to see wild flamingos in Florida

Seeing a wild flamingo in Florida still takes luck and patience. The best places are:

Many flamingos in Florida Bay feed on distant flats that are reached only by boat. Keep well back from feeding or resting birds, because disturbance makes them fly and wastes their energy. You can read more about the region’s other birds in our guide to Everglades wildlife.

Be careful with identification. From a distance, the pink roseate spoonbill, which is common in South Florida, is often mistaken for a flamingo. Spoonbills are smaller, with a flat, spoon-shaped bill and shorter legs.

Will flamingos breed in Florida again?

That is the big open question. American flamingos breed only in large, undisturbed colonies on remote mudflats, and they need suitable water levels and abundant food. Researchers think that if Caribbean populations keep growing and Florida’s coastal wetlands remain protected, flamingos could eventually nest in the state again.

Conservation groups have pushed for stronger protection, and scientists continue to track and count flamingos in Florida to learn where they feed and roost. For now, every wild flock in Florida is a sign of a native bird slowly finding its way home. To learn why these birds are so brightly colored, see why flamingos are pink.