Study reveals stork traveled 7,000 kilometers from Turkey’s Samsun

SAMSUN

A study has revealed that storks can travel thousands of kilometers after a survey done in Turkey’s Samsun tracked a stork that traveled as far as 7,000 kilometers from the Black Sea province to Mozambique, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The Samsun Municipality and Ondokuz Mayıs University’s ornithology research center started a project on storks on July 1, 2016, tagging tracking devices on the bodies of eight storks to follow their migration routes and destinations. 

One of the storks flew 7,000 kilometers from Samsun and arrived in Mozambique, while another arrived in Tanzania after flying 6,000 kilometers, the study revealed. Two other storks arrived in Sudan and Ethiopia.

Officials said two storks, which had tags on them, were killed after being hit by electric shocks while they were still migrating, while two other storks disappeared after their devices stopped responding. 

The stork which successfully arrived in Tanzania is reportedly on its way back.

Kiraz Erciyas Yavuz, the head of the ornithology department, said they were tracking every step of the storks through these devices, which weigh 57 grams each.

“We know that storks generally migrate to Sub-Saharan Africa. But we did not expect that two storks would be able to travel to as far as Tanzania and Mozambique. They exceeded the distance that we forecasted. We are currently continuing to follow four storks,” she said.

Yavuz also stated that they were being notified of their destination once in every five minutes.

“They do not stop in one place for a long time. They change their location according to water and food sources. We wonder whether or not all the storks that migrated will return. We will learn more about their migration habits with this study,” she added.