The flight of the Amur Falcon

[Chris Merkord]

Conservationists worry that a few more years of the literal decimation of Amur falcons could make it critically endangered. Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan/Conservation India

In a four-part series, Mint captures the change in Nagaland as its villages wake up to the importance of conservation

 

Pangti (Nagaland): I am standing at the scene of a massacre like no other. Last year, like every year since 2006, a tenth of all Amur falcons were killed here. That’s an estimated 10,000 to 14,000 a day for the 10 days the birds spend in Nagaland, en route their winter migration from Russia to the southern part of Africa.

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Last October, to ascertain information on large scale hunting in this remote region, Sreenivasan, Shashank Dalvi, research associate at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, and Bano Haralu and Rokohebi Kuotsu of Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust (NWBCT) visited Doyang to witness first-hand the massacre of Amur falcons on the banks of the Doyang reservoir.

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Earlier this year, the NWBCT, supported by the Nagaland government, Wildlife Conservation Society, Birdlife International, Bombay Natural History Society, Wildlife Conservation Trust and Raptor Research and Conservation Foundation, and Conservation India launched a wildlife education training programme, ‘Friends of the Amur Falcon—Under the Canopy’.

 

Read more: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/34X8t639wdF1PPhlOuhBlJ/The-flight-of-the-Amur-Falcon.html