Türkiye's second biggest lake, Lake Tuz, is going through a “pink summer” in Aksaray while elsewhere, work is underway to extract salt from its deposits.
The lake at the heart of the country acquired its new color due to an algae and bacteria boom amid rising temperatures. The body of the water, also known as the home of migratory birds and a primary sanctuary for pink flamingos in the spring and summer, draws more visitors nowadays.
Algae produce a red-orange pigment called beta-carotene when temperatures increase, along with the rate of salination, to protect themselves from harmful sunlight. This, in turn, changes the lake into a red or pink color that lasts until the arrival of the rainy season when the lake restores its original color.
Professor Mustafa Cemal Darılmaz, dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Aksaray University in the eponymous province which the lake stretches across, says the color mostly stems from artemia salina, a species of brine shrimp, a primary food for flamingos who acquire their color from them. “Flamingos thrive on insects, this shrimp and moss in the lake. So, in a way, they obtain their color from the lake,” he told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Friday.
The lake, which hosts a diverse array of other birds, was a graveyard of hundreds of baby and adult flamingos last year whose carcasses were found strewn across its dried parts. The mass deaths last summer prompted concerns since Lake Tuz is a sanctuary for most newborn flamingos who learn how to fly over the wetland before leaving in the autumn.
Climate change is the main cause of the drought, which takes its toll on animals relying on mass water resources that are now more in danger of drying up. Although the past season of rainfall and snowfall proved prosperous and revived dried parts of lakes, the danger is still there according to experts, who warn that future dry spells are still a possibility. Along with flamingos, dried water resources caused mass seagull deaths in other lakes across Türkiye where temperatures are steadily increasing.
Tamer Efe Çar, a visitor, says he was driving next to the lake as he traveled from the capital Ankara to the southern city of Mersin and decided to stop by when he saw the strange color. “This is a natural beauty. I absolutely recommend a visit to anyone who is bored of big city life to see this beautiful landscape and calm here,” he says.
Elsewhere, the lake’s waters recede as temperatures rise, marking the beginning of the “salt harvest.” For about three months every year, the country’s salt producers flock to the lake’s dry areas to extract salt from deposits. The lake is a major resource of salt for the country. The salt, with a purity rate of 99%, is also exported to more than 60 countries.
Lake Tuz is one of the shallowest lakes in Turkey, with a depth of around half a meter (1.6 feet) in most parts. Although the water level drops in the summer, the lake expands to cover 1,665 square kilometers (643 square miles) in the spring.
