Goodbye mocking bird, hello flamingo?

A bill to change the official state bird has been filed in the Florida House of Representatives.

Republican Representative Jim Mooney filed House Bill 81 on Jan. 3 proposing to make the American flamingo the state bird, replacing the mockingbird.

The mockingbird has been the state bird since 1927.

While Floridians may see flamingos in zoos, the birds have been almost nonexistent in the wild since the early 1900s.

Wild flamingos have, however, flourished in the Caribbean.

As the saying goes, birds of a feather, flock together. The Flamingos did just that during Hurricane Idalia in 2023 when they hitched a ride on the tails of Category 4 storm winds and made their grand reappearance near the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island.

Audubon Florida counted 100 of the birds across the state in March of 2024. Eighteen birds were counted in Southwest Florida on Pine Island.

WINK News went out in search of the birds in early 2024 and found several on Black Skimmer Island, also known as Bird Island, about a mile north of the Sanibel Causeway.

The majority of the birds were spotted in Florida Bay.

Audubon Florida says a flock of 62 birds were spotted recently by Mark Cook, PhD of the South Florida Water Management District.

Audubon Florida researchers say there is a healthy global population of more than 200,000 birds, but they are facing challenges, both from storm damage to their colonies and interference by people.

WINK News reached out to Audubon Florida about the proposed bill.

Communications Director Erika Zambello said in an email, “Asking us at Audubon Florida to choose our favorite species for the state bird is too much like choosing amongst our children – it’s too hard! What we do know is if people want to see more American Flamingos, they should advocate for wetlands conservation and Everglades restoration. If they are a fan of the Florida Scrub-Jay, they should care about protecting the rare scrub habitat this endemic bird needs to survive. And if they love the current state bird, the Northern Mockingbird, they should use native plants in their landscaping.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission considers flamingos to be native to Florida.

Plume hunters killed the birds for their beautiful pink feathers and destroyed their colonies. The feathers were a popular fashion statement often worn in hats.

Laws were passed to put an end to the hunting of the birds, but the murder of two game wardens in Southwest Florida created an outrage.

Lee County has a preserve named after one of those wardens. Columbus G. McLeod was an Audubon warden in the early 1900s.

According to Lee County Parks and Recreation, the warden disappeared in 1908 and was presumed murdered by plume hunters.

His death along with an Everglades Audubon warden who was murdered a few years earlier led to a national campaign to end plume hunting.

The Bill is also proposing to designate the Florida Scrub-Jay the official state songbird.

If the bill is approved during the next regular session it would go into effect on July 1.