Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley soda lakes at an elevation of 1754 m above sea level. It lies to the south
of Nakuru, in the rift valley of Kenya and is protected by Lake Nakuru National
Park.
The lake's abundance of algae used to attract a vast quantity
of flamingos that famously lined the shore. Other birds also flourish in the area, as
do warthogs, baboons and other large mammals. Eastern black rhinos and southern white rhinos have also been introduced.
The lake's level dropped dramatically in
the early 1990s but has since largely recovered. In 2013, the lake received an
alarming increase in the water levels that led to the migration of flamingos
to Lake Bogoria in search for food supply.
Nakuru means "Dust or Dusty
Place" in the Maasai language.
Lake Nakuru National Park, close to Nakuru town, was established in 1961. It
started off small, only encompassing the famous lake and the surrounding
mountainous vicinity, but has since been extended to include a large part of
the savannahs.
Lake Nakuru is protected under the Ramsar Convention on
wetlands.
Lake Nakuru National
Park (188 km2, 73 mi2), was created in 1961 around Lake Nakuru, near Nakuru Town. It is best known for its
thousands, sometimes millions of flamingos nesting along the shores. The
surface of the shallow lake is often hardly recognizable due to the continually
shifting mass of pink. The number of flamingos on the lake varies with water
and food conditions and the best vantage point is from Baboon Cliff. Also of interest is an area of
188 km (116 mi) around the lake fenced off as a sanctuary to
protect giraffes as well as both black and white rhinos.
The park has recently been enlarged
partly to provide the sanctuary for the black rhinos. This undertaking has
necessitated a fence - to keep out poachers rather than to restrict the
movement of wildlife. The park marches for 12.1 km on the south eastern
boundary with the Soysambu conservancy which represents a possible future expansion of
habitat for the rhinos and the only remaining wildlife corridor to Lake Naivasha.
The park now (2009) has more than
25 eastern black rhinoceros, one of the largest concentrations in
the country, plus around 70 endemicsouthern white rhinos. There are also a number of Rothschild's giraffe, again relocated for safety from western Kenya beginning in 1977. Waterbuck are very common and both the Kenyan species are found here. Among the
predators are Masai lions, cheetahs and leopards, the
latter being seen much more frequently in recent times. The park also has large
sized pythons that inhabit the dense woodlands, and can often be seen
crossing the roads or dangling from trees.
As well as flamingos, there are myriad
other bird species that inhabit the lake and the area surrounding it, such
as African fish eagle, Goliath heron, hamerkop, pied kingfisher and Verreaux's eagle among
others.
Habitat and Wildlife
Lake Nakuru, a small (it varies from 5
to 45 square kilometers) shallow alkaline
lake on the
southern edge of the town of Nakuru lies about 164 kilometers north
of Nairobi. It can therefore be visited in a day tour from the capital
or more likely as part of a circuit taking in the Masai
Mara (Also Maasai
Mara) or Lake Baringo and east to Samburu. The lake is world-famous as the location of the greatest
bird spectacle on earth - myriads of fuchsia pink flamingos whose numbers are legion, often
more than a million - or even two million. They feed on the abundant algae, which thrives in the warm waters.
Scientists reckon that the flamingo population at Nakuru consumes
about 250,000 kg of algae per hectare of surface area per
year.
There are two types of flamingo species: the lesser flamingo can
be distinguished by its deep red carmine bill and pink plumage unlike the
greater, which has a bill with a black tip. The lesser flamingos are ones that
are commonly pictured in documentaries mainly because they are large in number.
The number of flamingos has been decreasing recently, perhaps due to too much
tourism, pollution resulting from industries waterworks nearby who dump waste
into the waters or simply because of changes in water quality which makes the
lake temporarily inhospitable. Usually, the lake recedes during the dry season
and floods during the wet season.
In recent years, there have been wide
variations between the dry and wet seasons' water levels. It is suspected that
this is caused by increasing watershed land conversion to intensive crop
production and urbanization, both which reduce the capacity of soils to absorb
water, recharge ground water and thus increase seasonal flooding. Pollution and
drought destroy the flamingos' food, Cyanobacteria,
or blue-green algae, and causing them to migrate to the nearby Lakes, more
recently lakes Elmenteita, Simbi Nyaima and Bogoria. Local climate changes have
also been hypothesized to contribute to the changing environmental conditions
in the lakes catchment. Recent media reports indicate increasing concern among
stakeholders, as mass flamingo migrations and deaths could spell doom to the
tourism industry.
The flamingos feed on algae, created from their droppings mixing in
the warm alkaline waters, and plankton. But flamingo are not the only avian attraction,
also present are two large fish eating birds, pelicans and cormorants. Despite the tepid and alkaline waters, a diminutive fish, Alcolapia grahami has flourished after being introduced in the early
1960s. The lake is rich in other bird life. There are over 400 resident species
on the lake and in the surrounding park. Thousands of both little grebes and white winged black terns are frequently seen as are stilts, avocets, ducks, and in the European winter the migrant
waders.
Zooplankton: The monogonont rotifer species Brachionus sp. Austria (belonging to the Brachionus plicatilis cryptic species complex) occurs in
the lake