‘Chiuluan2,’ a satellite-tagged Amur falcon named after a village in Manipur’s Tamenglong district, arrived in South Africa on Saturday after crossing the Kalahari Desert, according to Wildlife Institute of India (WII) scientist R. Suresh Kumar.

The falcon, tagged last November to study migratory routes, reached the African Veldt, located 360 km west of Johannesburg. Earlier, it made its first stopover in Somalia after a non-stop flight across the Arabian Sea lasting five days and 17 hours.

The Manipur Forest Department and local residents released two tagged Amur falcons, ‘Chiuluan2’ (male) and ‘Gwangram’ (female), to track their migration and study environmental patterns. However, ‘Gwangram’ stopped transmitting signals on December 13.

Since 2018, Tamenglong has conducted several radio-tagging programs to raise awareness about wildlife conservation. Amur falcons, the world’s longest-traveling birds, cover a 20,000-km migratory route from southeast Russia and northeast China to Africa, stopping in northeast India and Somalia along the way.

Locally known as Akhuaipuina, these pigeon-sized raptors arrive in northeast India in October, feed extensively, and depart for Africa in November. They are protected under India’s Wildlife Protection Act.