UPSC Current – Manipur government issues orders for the protection of visiting Amur falcons
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Manipur government issues orders for the protection of visiting Amur falcons
Why in News?
- The Manipur government has stepped up vigil and launched an awareness campaign to protect Amur falcons, birds that migrate to the hilly districts of Manipur for two months.
- The migratory birds, sighted in the hilly districts of Manipur, stay in the State till the beginning of December.
Amur falcons
- They are the world’s longest travelling raptors start travelling with the onset of winters.
- The raptors breed in south-eastern 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).
