ELESTUN, Yucatan, Mexico — Tourists are the latest cash crop that resilient locals have turned to harvesting to offset a dwindling fishing-based economy.

A daily flotilla of fiberglass-hulled boats for hire navigates the shallow waters of the nearby Ria Celestun lagoon ferrying tourists on "pink safari" to spy American flamingos in the wild.

The pastel payoff comes in delightful splashes of pink created by birds feeding in large groups throughout the saline estuary. Depending on the calendar month, Celestun's colony numbers between 10,000 and 18,000 flamingos, making it one of the Western Hemisphere's largest year-round flocks.

Yet this idyllic picture belies a potential ecological conundrum.

The relationship between man and bird is far from symbiotic. Left to themselves, these timorous avians — the largest and most colorful of the world's flamingo species — are sociable creatures projecting serenity and calm. But if approached too closely by outsiders, they are easily disturbed and flighty.

Conservationists fret about stresses to the birds brought on by tour boats trolling too closely to the flamingos' periphery in order to satisfy eager passengers. There are also longer-term concerns that man's increasing intrusions may ultimately drive the birds to seek more remote living spaces.

Such dire warnings aside, Yucatan flamingos remain a multidecade conservation success story. The region's population has increased from a low of about 8,000 birds before government protection of nesting and feeding areas in 1979 to a high of 26,000 birds prior to Hurricane Gilbert, which savaged the peninsula in 1988 and stymied the flamingo's comeback for the better part of a decade.

Hurricanes had their way with the Yucatan landscape again in 2005. First Emily pounded the region in July only to be followed by Wilma in October. While these twin furies fell short of Gilbert's mayhem, only time will tell if there will be similar breeding setbacks caused by associated flooding. One bit of good news is that the area's fragile ecosystem remains largely intact, suggesting a speedy return to normalcy. On a side note, it also allows Celestun's flamingos to carry on uninterrupted with their tiny role in one of nature's better masquerades.

The sight gag is that these pink icons aren't really pink at all. It turns out the flamingo's signature hue is fleeting and that underneath every pink flamingo — whether in the Ria Celestun or elsewhere in the world — is a standard issue white flamingo that has literally been dyed pink from the inside out from swigging a cocktail of small crustaceans, insects, algae and other foods rich in beta carotene strained through a specially designed bill.