Three of the world's six species of flamingoes can be found in Peru, the most flamingo species seen in any country on Earth (but tied with Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina). In some cases the most common of the three, the Chilean Flamingo, can be seen in flocks of hundreds or even a few thousand quite close to cities and sites that already are visited by travelers. Specifically, there often are hundreds of Chilean Flamingoes in the shallow bays in the northern section of the Paracas National Reserve. Additionally, there are hundreds or thousands of Chilean Flamingoes, as well as small numbers of the other two, the James's and the Andean Flamingoes, in the extensive salt flats known as "Aguada Blanca", about two hours northeast of the extremely attractive tourist city of Arequipa in the southern Andes of Peru.

The latter two species, the James's and Andean, are represented by only about 50,000 and 35,000 birds, respectively, making them the world's rarest and most endangered of all flamingoes. These population estimates are quite precise and are the result of a four-nation, cooperative flamingo conservation program first organized in 1996 by the Peruvian conservation group, Peru Verde. The program, which is known as The Conservation Group for Flamingoes of the High Andes, has successfully organized simultaneous flamingo counts by trained teams from northern Chile, southwestern Bolivia, northwestern Argentina, and southern Peru. This program has for the first time yielded accurate estimates of the global populations of the two threatened species, which live over a California -or Germany- sized area in the south-central Andes.