Salt Lake is one of the most important saline lakes in Türkiye and holds second place only to Lake Van in size. For a long while, the place has been a paradise for flamingos, and the bright pink-hued lake due to its high saline content breeds thousands of flamingos every year. The struggle to protect this unique habitat and its residents has been long and tumultuous.
The Past: A Haven under Threat
Salt Lake, originally covering 1,500 square kilometers, was losing its surface area through a confluence of positive actions against a background of climate change, imprudent agricultural undertakings, and water resource mismanagement. The milestone in 2024 arises because the superficial area of the lake has been reduced to below one-half of the original area and now contributes to ecological imbalance in the frail ecosystem. The two most prominent actions that created this decline of the lake are over-extraction of groundwater for agricultural purposes and diversion of water from feeder streams. All those, in addition to the reduction in the amount of rainfall and a rise in temperatures, accelerated the process of desiccation. With the disappearance of this water body, not only the salinity levels decreased inside Salt Lake but also, the critical habitats of different species disappeared. The salinity of the lake, a special and hypersaline environment, hosts a number of species like brine shrimps that are an important link of the food chain as they are the principal diet supporting migratory birds. The inclination of the water level on the downside has brought this species in a state of extinction. Flamingos are among the hardest-hit species, which breed and feed in shallow waters of the lake. In 2024 alone, over 70% of the flamingos flocking to Salt Lake have been lessened by the number of acres, raising concerns for the long-term prospects for this iconic species in the area. Loss of wetland areas caused by the shrinking of the lake means other migratory birds may lose their crucial stopover points.
In 2019, Salt Lake was a bustling haven for flamingos, with more than 20,000 chicks born each year. Purely on the basis of the huge untouched expanse, it is one of the world's significant anchorage nesting sites. The main place for flamingos' nesting, to the greatest extent in the southern part of Salt Lake,
has been convenient because it is hidden from human activities, and its ground is reaching for feeding. This changed in 2021 to worse devastation and was marked by death as thousands of flamingo chicks succumbed to severe droughts that were attributed to the hosting lake's lowered size due to climate change and reckless agricultural practices. The water levels of the lake had dramatized, leaving entirely bare and desolate a landscape with heaps of carcasses of the pink flamingoes' chicks. This ghastly event has underlined how fragile the ecosystem of Salt Lake actually is and the urgent requirement of intervention. The environmentalists attributed the shrinking of the lake, to a large extent, to the inappropriate use of water in the agricultural process.
There were mentions that the consumption levels of water were much higher than the available reserve of water by 30% in that area. Even after such warnings, it seemed the only mission for failure to the Turkish government that believed farming irrigation was also the reason for the inappropriate condition of the lake and announced that natural reasons were the cause for mass deaths.
The Turning Point: Initiatives to Save Salt Lake
Türkiye's Ministry of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change In 2022, at last intervenes. To avert the ecological collapse, the General Directorate of Nature Conservation commenced a program of drilling wells that would supply water to places of paramount importance for flamingo nurseries in the face of critical drought—mainly due to the summer heat.
This has entailed installing solar-powered pumps with a 4-kilometer pipe system to provide a steady water supply to the "nurseries" in which flamingo chicks are reared. Efforts have also included keeping a close watch on the colonies of flamingos: field personnel have been on site, observing the area on a day-to-day basis. All these measures have been important in preventing the mass deaths that disrupted the lake conclusively most years. The pledge to maintain the Salt Lake's biodiversity was an important paradigm change in the government approach, looking towards long-term measures of sustainability and conservation. There were also other initiatives taken.
Key initiatives undertaken in the form of the Water Conservation and Restoration Program focus on the minimization of water extraction from the lake's catchment area. This program has used the approach where the farmers are to be motivated to use sustainable irrigation practices like drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting that are applied to reduce water use. Other notable features are the steps taken to prevent over-extraction of ground water and to ensure the return of natural water inflows that had been reduced to the lake. Biodiversity Protection Project protects the threatened fauna and flora species that rely on Salt Lake. The project involved creating artificial wetlands and developing protected areas around the lake to provide a suitable habitat for wildlife. There is also a drive to reintroduce the native plant species as well as to restore the natural vegetation cover that is key to the ecological balance of the lake. Another very important challenge is the Climate Change Mitigation Strategy, addressing wider environmental challenges leading to degradation of the lake. This involves reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, promotion of renewable sources of energy, and improvement of resiliency to climate change within the region. This initiative aims to develop a much more sustainable future for Salt Lake and the communities surrounding it by mitigating the root causes of change in climate.
Today: A Success Story of Conservation
Such activities began to have a noticeable impact by 2024. That same year mass deaths of flamingo chicks no longer occurred on Salt Lake, an event that was believed impossible just a few years prior. Due to the drilling of wells and the constant monitoring of water sources, today flamingos receive all the necessary water for not only normal periods but also extremely arid times throughout the entire breeding season.
This was registered even through a successful population on the lake with flamingos. About 4,300 flamingos chicks were born and released safely in 2024, giving much credit to the effect of conservation activities. Even if this number of chicks was far much less than in the previous years, the stable and sustainable environment was lacking in mass deaths of the flamingos.
Careful management has also been extended to other endangered species in the area, like the great bustard and the steppe eagle. What was, till a few years ago merely a lifeless waterbody has become a now beacon of conservation, showing the world only too well that with well‐directed effort, fragile ecosystems can be restored to health and preserved.
A Continued Commitment to Save Salt Lake
The story of Salt Lake and its flamingos is one of resilience and recovery-from the devastating droughts of 2021 to the successful conservation efforts in 2024, the transformation of this lake carries important ramifications for proactive and sustained management of the environment. The steps taken by the Turkish government in cooperation with environmental organizations and experts saved not just thousands of flamingo chicks but also preserved one of the most iconic natural features of Türkiye.
Since the conservation of Salt Lake remains so important to the breeding sites for pink flamingos, it is the persistence that this whole rare ecosystem gains value with. The story of Salt Lake can become a blueprint for conservation efforts around the world, underlining the need to protect our natural heritage for future generations.