At first, everyone thought it was probably something to do with climate change. What, exactly, no one could say— a subtle shift in the ambient air-temperature?— something to do with the humidity?— extra UV coming through the hole in the ozone?— a break in the chemistry of the oceans and lakes? Maybe, maybe. It was probably something to do with climate change, though, that’s what everyone thought at first. Everything had been something to do with climate change, lately.

But then what to do? How was the staff at the Roger Williams Zoo going to get the flamingos to start eating again? “What plans does the Zoo have for dealing with this problem?” asked Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI, because of course this was all over the local news— local news was invented specifically for stories like this. Right between the new zoning-laws for chimneys and the re-renaming of the dog-park, it was the flamingos— every day, the flamingos, every day “Have they started eating again yet?”

Every day, they were getting thinner and thinner. Their legs were like twigs, and then they were like wires, and then they were like hairs, and not only that, but they were becoming less and less pink— every day, they were grayer and grayer.

“It’s because of the fish they eat,” one of the zookeepers explained to Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI on a Wednesday afternoon— “Or I mean, it’s because of the fish they aren’t eating. The fish and algae flamingos usually eat have a special chemical that turns them pink. Flamingos are actually born gray, and now that they’ve stopped eating, they’re returning to their more natural color.”

And this, this really got the people up in a tizzy. The flamingos getting thinner, that was an “aww, I hope they start eating again soon” kind of story, that was a “between the chimney laws and the dog park” kind of story— but the flamingos losing their pink? It was horrid. It was grotesque. Flamingos weren’t supposed to look like that. It was the nightly news and it was Fox and MSNBC, and every day the flamingos were getting thinner and grayer. CNN put up a graphic of how gray we could expect the flamingos to get day by day. Anchors and biologists and state-senators had lively on-air debates about whether the thing to do was put in feeding-tubes to all the flamingos or give them intravenous injections of the chemical to make them pink, or just paint them pink, or just replace them with some of those plastic lawn-flamingos. “There are more plastic lawn-flamingos in the world than actual living flamingos,” said one of the biologists on one of the shows, not because it changed the calculus in any way but just because it was a fact she knew and she hadn’t heard anyone else say it yet. 

It wasn’t until the end of the third week that someone finally bothered to ask the flamingos what was going on. 

“We’re having a hunger-strike,” the Head Flamingo explained with more than a little annoyance. “We don’t want to be pink anymore.”

“You don’t want to be pink anymore?” Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI repeated back to the Head Flamingo. You could tell he was the Head Flamingo because that’s what it said along the bottom of the screen whenever it cut to him; “Head Flamingo”.

Really, he was just the first flamingo that Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI had seen and come up to talk to. “That’s right,” he said. “We don’t want to be pink anymore.”

“Why don’t you want to be pink anymore?”

The Head Flamingo shook his flamingo head. “I don’t really see how that’s any business of yours. We don’t have to justify ourselves to you. They’re our feathers. We don’t want them to be pink anymore and that’s all you need to know.”

It was hard to think up something to say back to that— or at least something that didn’t feel rude.

The Head Flamingo went on to outline the flamingos’ demands, which he thought were pretty reasonable. What they wanted was a completely new diet of sardines and other small fish, as well as a different breed of algae from the algae they’d been eating before. “Anything without beta-carotene is fine. Aside from that, we don’t plan on being all that picky.”

He also made it perfectly clear that the flamingos of Roger Williams Zoo were not speaking nor claiming to speak for the flamingos of any other zoo, or for any of the few flamingos still in the wild, or for any flamingos that had somehow managed not to exist in either of those situations.

“Our wishes are our own, and we have no interest in imposing them on anyone else.”

Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI was left speechless. Ten seconds of excruciating dead air before her cameraman finally chimed in. 

“…but we want your feathers to be pink.”

“I don’t really see how that’s any of your business either.”

The next day, the first of the flamingos toppled over from exhaustion. Some of the zoo-workers tried to come in and help, but the other flamingos knew better– it was just going to be the same algae.

The next day after that, the Head Flamingo stopped taking interviews. 

The next day after that, the exhibit was closed to the public, by demand of parents. Nobody wanted their children to see this sort of thing going on. “We have to protect our kids,” said Mary Hithers to Keira Farrow of Channel 12 WPRI. “Who knows what effect seeing flamingos like this will have on their young minds? What if they get scared? Or confused? They aren’t nearly old enough to understand seeing flamingos like this. My daughter has a beautiful little flamingo-print backpack, it’s her favorite thing in the world. Shouldn’t we be protecting this? Shouldn’t we be protecting her?”

The next day after that, it stopped showing up on the local news. There were other things to worry about; the color of the sidewalk and the street itself on Ridgeon Avenue had become too similar after a recent repaving, and wasn’t that terrifying? What if someone thought the sidewalk was the street and tried to drive on it? What if your daughter was walking there wearing her beautiful little flamingo-print backpack? The Mayor could barely keep ahead of the chaos. 

Four days after that, all the flamingos of the Roger Williams Zoo were dead. The cage was quietly cleaned out, redesigned, repainted. The Franklin Park Zoo in Massachusetts agreed to gift along six of their own flamingos to start a breeding program, replenish the exhibit, and everyone was happy. This hadn’t been the best outcome, but it was certainly better than some; better to have no flamingos at all than flamingos that weren’t pink.