Jim Mooney has launched a high-wattage campaign to elevate the flamingo to Florida’s state bird.
The Republican has handed out flamingo lapel pins and 11 x 16 prints of flamingo artwork to his 119 colleagues in the state legislature. He sported a suit with a pink shirt, a pink pocket square and a tie festooned with flamingos to testify on behalf of his legislation.
But the gangly pink bird must unseat the mockingbird, which has been Florida’s official bird for 99 years, to gain the distinction Mooney says it deeply deserves.
To accomplish this, the lawmaker is hoping to reach a political compromise with supporters of the sprightly and charming Florida scrub jay, who have torpedoed his legislation in the past. The scrub jay would be honored as the state’s songbird under Mooney’s bill, while the flamingo would become the state bird.
“It’s unbelievable how this has taken on a life of its own,” said Mooney, a retired high school sports coach and former mayor of Islamorada. “I’m seeing flamingos everywhere I go. Across the state, everywhere I turn around, it’s a flamingo here and a flamingo there. People are sending me texts and letters about it. Everybody is on board for the flamingo.”
He quickly added, “And the scrub jay.”
Florida struck a similar deal in 2022 when strawberry growers lobbied the state to honor the strawberry shortcake. Many in the state — especially in Mooney’s Florida Keys district — were outraged at the prospect that the key lime pie, the official state pie, could be pushed aside. Instead, state lawmakers just created a new category — state dessert — and awarded it to the strawberry shortcake.
“There’s room for both, just like there’s room for both the flamingo and the scrub jay,” Mooney said.
At stake are mostly bragging rights, though supporters also hope to secure more money for the study and conservation of flamingos. The American flamingo is already protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act, but conservationists say it should also be considered a threatened species, offering it even more protection after it was nearly wiped out in Florida over the past century by plume hunters and, later, habitat loss.
Audubon Florida Executive Director Julie Wraithmell refuses to choose a favorite among the flamingo, mockingbird and scrub jay — “we don’t choose between our kids” — but hopes the bird competition will lead to them all receiving more recognition.
“If you’re Team Flamingo, you should put your influence and your support where your loyalty lies and really support Everglades restoration,” Wraithmell said. “If you’re Team Scrub Jay, you need to be paying attention to if the state is appropriating enough funding for upland land management for our parks and preserves.”
Supporters have been campaigning for flamingos, one of the state’s most celebrated symbols, for years. But a debate among scientists about whether the wading bird, which on average can stand five feet tall, is native to the Sunshine State has hampered those efforts. Skeptics noted that few were seen in the wild, or outside a zoo, for more than 100 years.
But Mooney, who has sponsored pro-flamingo legislation for the past three years, said a new University of Central Florida study may finally settle the dispute. Flamingos are native to the state and “genetically fit for restoration,” according to the study released in December. Audubon Florida also found that more than 101 flamingos landed in the state during Hurricane Idalia in 2023 and never left.
The exact number of flamingos in Florida is unknown — the state doesn’t keep track — but residents regularly report sightings, including Mooney, who likes to show everyone he encounters a video of nearly three dozen flamingos serenely feeding in the Florida Bay in early January. A scientist spotted a flamboyance of 125 flamingos in the Everglades in July.
The proposal, being debated during the current legislative session, isn’t as weighty as some of the other topics Florida lawmakers are expected to tackle, including the cost of property insurance, Mooney said, but still important.
“We seldom have bills that make you feel good,” he said. “This bill does, and it also has some real intrinsic value. It shows that our restoration projects are bearing fruit, and that flamingos are here to stay.”
He was thrilled when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gave the birds a shout-out during his State of the State address this week. “Even the flamingos have returned,” DeSantis said while touting the state’s Everglades restoration work.
Efforts to elevate the flamingo have overtaken a decades-long pro-scrub jay campaign. The friendly blue and white bird has fans among Florida schoolchildren, who have formed clubs and written lawmakers in support of the scrub jay being named state bird. It also has a devoted following among environmentalists who often argue against overdevelopment that would disturb their habitats.
In 1999, Marion Hammer, the first female president of the National Rifle Association and considered among the most formidable lobbyists in Tallahassee, helped derail scrub jay supporters. They are “evil little birds that rob the nests of other birds and eat their eggs and kill their babies,” she said.
Hammer was on Team Mockingbird and in an op-ed in 2016 noted that they are good parents and also remarkable songbirds, while the scrub jay “can’t even sing — it can only squawk.”
The scrub jay lets out a soft trill during courtship but is often lumped in with songbirds, like blue jays, that it is related to. Flamingos, meanwhile, make squawky sounds.
The mockingbird should remain the state bird, just as it’s been since 1927, Hammer argued. (It’s also the state bird in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.)
“The scrub jay has just been commandeered to really violate property rights across Florida, and I just cannot allow it to be elevated to this level,” state Rep. Monique Miller, a Central Florida Republican, said during a committee meeting in December. “I wish these were decoupled because I want to make the flamingo your bird so badly.”
Jackson Oberlink, a fifth-generation Floridian, has testified on behalf of the flamingo for the past four years, only to see his hopes dashed. He’s not nearly as optimistic as Mooney that it will succeed this time.
“Every year, there seems to be a few more flamingo props in a committee room, and it seems like there’s a bit more enthusiasm. And then every year, it kind of peters out,” said Oberlink, the former legislative director for Florida For All, a liberal lobbying group.
But he’s not ready to give up.
Oberlink said he became enchanted with the gangly pink birds when he encountered Pinky, a flamingo that was blown into the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in north Florida by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
“I have a tattoo of Pinky and the St. Marks lighthouse. So it definitely … left a mark on me, and I’ll always be rooting for the flamingo in Florida.”
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