Radio-tagged Amur falcon ‘Tamenglong’ lost in Zambia: Official

Tamenglong and Manipur, a male falcon, were tagged on November 4, 2018, as part of one of the projects to study the flight route of these long-distance migratory birds and environmental patterns along the route.

One of the two satellite-tagged female Amur falcons, which flew non-stop for five days covering thousands of kilometres to reach Somalia in November last year, has lost contact after reaching Zambia, a Wildlife Institute of India (WII) official said on Wednesday.

The last location of Amur falcon ‘Tamenglong’ was in North Luangwa National Park of Zambia in South Africa.(HT Photo)

“Tamenglong has not transmitted (any signal) after 14 December. The last location of Tamenglong was in North Luangwa National Park of Zambia in South Africa,” scientist R Suresh Kumar said.

Kumar said the reason they are not receiving any signal from the bird, named after a district in Manipur, could be because of a “technical failure.” But he ruled out that the falcon may have been killed there.

“There is no document of hunting in the area where Tamenglong was last located,” Kumar, who has tagged 10 birds over the last five years, said.

Longleng, another satellite radio tagged bird named after Nagaland’s district, continues to be active and has reached close to its last year roost site, Kumar said.

Longleng was radio-tagged in Nagaland in October 2016. Tamenglong and Manipur, a male falcon, were tagged on November 4, 2018, as part of one of the projects to study the flight route of these long-distance migratory birds and environmental patterns along the route.

But Manipur was found dead four days later at Keibu Ching area in Tamenglong district.

Tamenglong and Longleng started their non-stop migration on November 9 and 19 and reached Somalia in the third week of November 2018. Since then they had been spending their time in African countries.

The falcons spend their summers at their breeding grounds in southeast Russia and northeast China. They migrate to their wintering grounds in South Africa, from where they start their return journey in April-May through Afghanistan and East Asia, undertaking a yearly journey of about 20,000 km. In between, they stop in India’s northeast, where they have been killed in large numbers in recent years, and Somalia.

In their journey, these pigeon-sized birds arrive in large numbers during October in Nagaland and Manipur besides a few places in northeast India. They leave the region in November after having enough food for their non-stop flight to Africa where they spend their winters.

Meanwhile, Manipur’s forest department which had been taking up widespread wildlife conservation activities in association with villagers is planning to tag satellite radio transmitters to a few birds in 2019.