Follow their journey on a live map!
The great love story of Klepetan and Malena has been the talk of the town in recent weeks. However, Klepetan is not the only stork whose journey is worthy of following – meet Leta and Tesla, two storks who have yet to return to their homeland.
As part of an ongoing project called SOS Stork, initiated by the association Stork Switzerland in collaboration with Zagreb ZOO and AWAP (Association for Wild Animals Protection), Leta and Tesla have been marked by satellite transmitters to enable tracking their migration routes. The project aims to establish if any of the white storks currently being tracked are changing their usual routes, as well as to pinpoint the exact locations of their rest stops and possible setbacks they might encounter.
Monitoring a bird's journey to the south and back doesn't exactly qualify as breaking news, but it's fascinating to think of an animal traveling thousands of kilometres as part of its annual routine. The abstract idea of stork migration suddenly gets easier to grasp when you see their actual route on a map: Leta, a female stork usually residing in Lonjsko polje Nature Park, flew all the way to Zimbabwe and is currently passing through Bulgaria on her way back. Tesla, her male co-resident, is lagging behind – he visited Sudan and Chad, and is in Lebanon at the moment.
You can follow Leta's journey here, while Tesla is to be found here.