The
incident has prompted the state government to discuss cancellation of gun
licenses (air guns) in the next Cabinet meeting
Updated:
November 16, 2018 12:17 IST
Days
after it was satellite-tagged and released, an Amur falcon "Manipur",
named after the northeast Indian state bordering Myanmar, was allegedly shot
down by unknown people at a roosting site during its migratory passage through
the region.
The
incident has prompted the state government to discuss cancellation of gun
licenses (air guns) in the next cabinet meeting while a district administration
has imposed a ban on air guns in the aftermath of the incident.
Meanwhile,
wildlife biologists associated with the tagging exercise will kick-off landscape-level
surveys across river valleys in Manipur to ascertain the status of roosting
sites.
Amur
falcons are known to breed in southeast Russia and northern China and migrate
west through India and across the Arabian Sea to southern Africa where they
spend their winter, making a round-trip of at least 20,000 km every year,
travelling between their breeding and wintering grounds.
This
arduous journey includes a non-stop flight over the Arabian Sea after passing
across India. The resilient falcons arrive in large numbers during October in
Nagaland and a few other places in northeastern India, including Tamenglong in
Manipur.
"Manipur",
a male migratory raptor, was one of the two Amur falcons to be tagged for the
first time in the state. The second bird, a female, was christened
"Tamenglong" after the district where it was captured and released.
Both were captured on November 4 and released in the morning the day after.
The
exercise in the remote community forest area of Chiuluan village along the
Barak river in Tamenglong district of the state was undertaken by a team of
officials led by Suresh Kumar of the Wildlife Institute of India, the state
Forest Department under DFO Arun R.S. and biologists from Hungary.
No comments:
Post a Comment