Original photo by k8most/ Adobe Stock
If you’ve ever strolled through a market in the touristy part of a major city, you know that knockoff Gucci handbags and fake Rolexes are more abundant than real ones. The same can be said for flamingos, as the pink plastic lawn decorations made in their image far outnumber the actual birds. The exact number of real flamingos is hard to quantify given the animal’s broad global range and migration patterns, but estimates suggest there are roughly 3.45 million to 4.68 million flamingos in the wild.
Those numbers pale in comparison to plastic flamingos, of which tens of millions exist. The item was created in 1957 by artist Don Featherstone based on an image in the October issue of National Geographic. Initially, the flamingo was sold with a plastic duck for $2.76 (roughly $31.73 as of 2025). Some consumers purchased the bird as a way to make their homes stand out in cookie-cutter housing developments, while others just liked the way it looked on their lawns.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factIn 1979, two University of Wisconsin students installed 1,008 plastic pink flamingos on a campus lawn overnight. The prank soon became tradition, and the school now holds a “Fill the Hill” fundraiser each year. In 2009, local officials designated the plastic flamingo the city’s official bird.
The 1960s saw a bit of backlash, as members of the counterculture movement rejected the ornaments for being tacky — but the flamingos were reembraced in the 1970s as people once again came to appreciate their kitsch. Sales spiked in the wake of the 1972 John Waters film Pink Flamingos and again rather inexplicably in 1985. In that year, several companies noted a confusing albeit welcome increase in purchases of the plastic bird, including big-box retailer Canadian Tire, whose sales jumped a whopping 70% year over year.
When Featherstone passed away in 2015, The Washington Post reported that upward of 20 million fake flamingos had been sold since their debut, and that number continues to grow. Several species of real flamingo, however, find themselves in a population decline, including the lesser, Chilean, and Andean varieties.
Numbers Don't Lie
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______ has the highest wild flamingo population of any country.
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Kenya has the highest wild flamingo population of any country.
Flamingos aren't born pink.
The colorful pink plumage of a standard flamingo has to do not with genetics, but with the bird’s diet. Flamingos are born with gray feathers and gradually develop their pink hue over the next two or so years. This happens as they consume more beta-carotene — a red-orange pigment that’s abundant in the many algaes, brine shrimp, and brine fly larvae flamingos eat.
Once consumed, the pigments are broken down and absorbed by fats in the liver, which deposits the color into the bird’s feathers and skin. Zoos often serve a soupy, nutritious mixture with high levels of carotenoids to flamingos in captivity to promote good health and maintain the birds’ vibrant pink color.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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