BIRDS OF GOD

Subject: Environment

Context: ‘Birds of God’ project is a true success because of the involvement of the community. There has never been such a quick turnaround to a conservation project in India, where one year a species was being hunted and in the next, it stopped.

To celebrate the conservation story, the Nagaland government held an Amur Falcon Conservation Week and Festival earlier this month.

Concept:

Amur Falcons:

• Amur falcons, the world’s longest travelling raptors start travelling with the onset of winters.
• The raptors breed in southeastern Siberia and northern China, and migrate in millions across India and then over the Indian Ocean to southern Africa before returning to Mongolia and Siberia. Their 22,000-kilometre migratory route is one of the longest amongst all avian species.
• They get their name from the Amur River that forms the border between Russia and China.
• Doyang Lake in Nagaland is better known as a stopover for the Amur falcons during their annual migration from their breeding grounds to warmer South Africa. Thus, Nagaland is also known as the “Falcon Capital of the World,”.
• The birds are the least concern under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, but the species is protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Convention on Migratory Species, to which India is a signatory (which means it is mandatory to protect the birds).