Volunteers of the Ministry of Environment Continue to Care for Polluted Storks

Under the supervision of the Ministry of Environment and the Inspectorate of Nature Protection and Mining, 11 volunteers and two non-governmental organizations (BirdLinks Armenia and PEES) continue to monitor and care for the polluted storks, which were affected in June and July of this year. The work has been carried out at the Fauna Zoo Rehabilitation Center. The process has been coordinated by the legal advisor to the Minister of Environment, Karen Aghababyan.

For months, the volunteer group has been traveling through the territories of the Ararat and Armavir regions where polluted storks have been observed. It should be noted that as a result of the conducted observations, the members of the group have recorded the directions marked for stork flight through networked monitoring. The observations have allowed identifying feeding bases for the birds and potential pollution hotspots.

The studies conducted in June and July indicated that approximately 60 percent of the breeding storks between Hovtashen and Eraskhahun and the village of Hayanist were polluted. Thanks to the dedicated volunteers concerned about the protection of wildlife in Armenia, storks have been discovered and cleaned in that area for the third consecutive year. The ministry expresses gratitude to all citizens who have devoted time and supported the invaluable mission of rescuing the white storks.