"Explorer Buckbeak," an imperial eagle that was found injured and treated at the Ankara University Wild Animal Treatment Unit before being released back into the wild, has now returned to Türkiye after five months.
The preservation and sustainability of endangered species are of vital importance for Türkiye’s biodiversity. Hence, Türkiye carries out various preservation programs for wildlife and some 650 species, including the 123 mammals, 386 birds and 141 reptiles now under the protection of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In order to gather information for studies on the protection of endangered species, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry performed studies in Kırklareli, Edirne, Istanbul, Tekirdağ, Çanakkale, Bolu, Çankırı, Çorum, Sivas, Tokat, Kırşehir, Aksaray, Niğde, Konya, Ankara and Eskişehir where nests of imperial eagles were found.
Nearly 80 nests were found by visiting the designated places and satellite transmitter tracking devices were fitted to suitable offspring in nests to monitor the species in order to learn about the habitats of these imperial eagles in the country. Since 2017, the number of eagles fitted with the device has reached 12.
With these studies, it was also aimed to investigate the success rates of survival in the wild after the treatment of injured or weakened individuals.
The young emperor eagle, which was found injured and brought to the Ankara University Wild Animal Treatment Unit, was released back into nature after six months of treatment with a satellite transmitter. Released into the wild on May 18, it quickly began to head east. Meanwhile, a campaign was launched for the eagle on social media by the relevant units of the ministry and the imperial eagle was named "Explorer Buckbeak."
In approximately a week, Explorer Buckbeak moved to the Dagestan Autonomous Region of Russia. Later, the eagle's signal was lost. The fledgling eagle returned to Türkiye to spend the winter there about five months later. The imperial eagle, which has been sighted in Çankırı for the past week, has demonstrated that, in contrast to what was previously believed, the imperial eagle population in the nation has undergone a horizontal migration movement.
Despite the fact that the return movement appears to cross the sea, it has been found that the data frequency is to blame for this condition. The look of the bird on the map as if it were passing across the water was believed to be misleading because no other point between the previous data of the bird and the data in Çankırı was recorded. The bird is thought to have flown over land before landing in its previous habitat.
Meanwhile, 260 wild animals have received GPS transmitter collars over the course of 10 years. With the use of 3,180 video traps, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks keeps track of the variety of wild animals across the nation and their lifecycles have been carefully studied.