Environmentalists are concerned about reports that flamingoes living in Lake Bogoria in the Great Rift Valley are facing grave threats because of irresponsible dumping of untreated industrial effluents. Although about a million flamingoes live in this otherwise nearly dead lake, hundreds are dying because of this contamination. Carcasses of the birds were found carrying high levels of heavy metals mostly from industrial and pesticide runoffs.

David Harper, a biologist from the University of Leicester in England, has been keeping a count of the carcasses. According to Harper, flamingoes dying around Lake Bogoria had spent most of their lives at the larger and shallower Lake Nakuru, situated around 100 kilometres from Bogoria.

Nakuru is the first bird sanctuary in Africa and it is also a national park. But Lake Nakuru rests at the bottom of a 3,108 square kilometre catchment area and it has no outlet. The lake absorbs runoffs not only from hundreds of neighbouring farms