A historic flight
BIRD-LOVERS will after all have a chance to gather more information about the highly, endangered wild Siberian cranes. After dragging its feet over the rnatter, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) recently permitted conservationists to install a satellite transmitter on the back of one of the cranes spending their winter at the Keoladeo Ghana National Park near Bharatpur, Rajasthan. These experiments will be the first of their kind in conservation history.
The satellite transmitter would trace the migratory route of the cranes and collect details about their habitats and breeding ranges. When the cranes fly back to their Siberian homes, signals beamed from the transmitter would be received in Japan through the Argos satellite. Experts from India and, abroad have been trying to persuade the MEF to allow transmitter experiments since the cranes arrived in the Ghana park on February 1. The birds have come after a gap of two years and are expected to leave the, park some time this month.