With a dip in mercury level, the people of Wokha district in Nagaland have started welcoming their winged guests, who visits them every year.
The villagers of Pangti, Ashaa and Sungro villages located near the Doyang reservoir in Nagaland’s Wokha district not only welcome the Amur Falcons but have also formed Pangti village Amur Falcons protection Committee this year with over 300 strong volunteers to protect the birds during their two months of roosting there.
It may be mentioned here that the Amur Falcons are the longest travelling raptors in the world and come to Doyang every year in millions. Until recently, Naga tribesmen used to hunt thousands of Amur falcons for meat.
However, after a vigorous campaign by wildlife activists and some NGOs, they pledged to protect the bird in 2014 and since then, not a single bird has been hunted in the area.
“About 80 percent of the birds have already arrived for roosting. like last two years, we have formed the protection committee with over 300 volunteers to protect the birds during the two months,’ said Zanthungo N Shitio, a local of Pangti village and one of the volunteers.
These amazing raptors travel one of the longest migration routes of all birds, doing up to 22,000 km in a year and they arrive in Nagaland—particularly in Doyang Reservoir—its largest roosting site in the country from Siberia en route to their final destination Somalia, Kenya and South Africa.
Zanthungo and other volunteers will be on their toes for these two months to protect the avian guests. All the volunteers will deployed in shifts across the villages so that not a single bird can be harmed before their departure towards end of next month.
“It is the hard work of the volunteers that there is not a single hunting of the birds in last two years,” he said adding that they were trained by several wildlife NGOs on how to monitor and protect the birds during this roosting period.
The volunteers were paid an amount of `200 each per day for their service for close to two months by the State forest department. The conservation efforts by the villagers have also opened up new opportunities for the locals as most of them have started home stay facilities in their houses to accommodate hundreds of conservationists and bird watchers from different parts of the world, who throng the villages to see the Amur Falcons.