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Tagged Amur Falcon ‘Alang’ Is Crossing the Arabian Sea Toward India

Real-time tracking from a decade-long Manipur project is turning once-hunted stopovers into a conservation model.

Overview

  • Alang, which left Somalia on Friday, is being tracked mid-flight over the Arabian Sea and could finish the nonstop leg in about three days if tailwinds hold.
  • The spring route from Somalia to Northeast India spans nearly 6,000 km over open ocean, and departures are timed to catch the Somali Jet tailwind.
  • A tagged companion, Apapang, earlier logged a 4,750 km nonstop flight to central India in about 95 hours, showing what these small raptors can sustain.
  • Three falcons were tagged in November 2025 at Chiuluan in Manipur under a Ministry-funded effort led by the Wildlife Institute of India with the state forest department.
  • Before the sea hop, huge roosts at Tamenglong let the birds gorge on swarming termites, nearly doubling weight to store fat and metabolic water for days of flapping flight.