Morung Express News Dimapur | October 22 After the ongoing ‘Dzükou Valley Festival’ (October 19-25), the Nagaland Tourism is again gearing up for the first-ever Amur Falcon Conservation Week and Festivals which will kick-off from November 8 at Doyang in Wokha District.
The three-day festival will also coincide with the premier Lotha Nagas’ post-harvest festival Tokhu Emong, generally celebrated on the first week of November. The festival, among others, is celebrated to observe and acknowledge the bountiful harvest showered on them by the Almighty.
Christening Nagaland as the "Falcon Capital of the World,” the tourism department on its website informed that the festival will become an annual affair from this year to coincide with the “peak migration period and best season for undertaking outdoor activities.”
The main objective behind this initiative is to spread awareness on wildlife conservation and strengthen human-nature relationship, the department maintained.
It is also held to “address alternative and sustainable livelihood opportunities for the community though eco-tourism,” it added.
The three-day event according to the publicity campaign posted on its website will be an eclectic fusion of activities such as wildlife conservation, cultural, eco-tourism, adventure and water sports.
These activities will be amply balanced with food and music festival.
The Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) is a small raptor of the falcon family. Over a million of Amur falcons come to Nagaland from Siberia en route to their final destination to Somalia, Kenya and South Africa. These migratory birds have one of the longest migration routes of all birds, doing up to 22,000 km in a year.
Once infamous for the indiscriminate and widespread hunting of the Amur falcons, Nagaland, since 2013, has become synonymous with conservation of the migratory birds. The first satellite tracking of Amur falcon from Nagaland started that year.
With the gradual increase of community reserved forest areas, ornithologists observed that the roosting sites of the Amur falcons are increasing in the State and the state has won various recognitions for the effort. Notable among the roosting sites is the Doyang reservoir where hundreds of thousands of Amur Falcon is known to congregate every year. At its peak in October, this stopover may hold the world’s largest concentration of raptors, according to National Geographic, which listed Doyang as one of the 10 best birding destinations in the world, earlier this year.
