The female, nicknamed 'Roya', has been raised in captivity in Zutendaal in the Limburg municipality. She departed for Tehran, the Iranian capital, on Tuesday 24 January [2022].
Since the death of the female, ‘Omid’ – meaning ‘hope’ in Persian – has faced a lonely existence as the only living Siberian Crane from the western population, fruitlessly undertaking two colossal migration flights each year from Siberia to wetlands near Fereydunkenar along the southern shores of the Caspian Sea in Iran. Omid returned to his Iranian wintering grounds in late October 2022, but soon he and the western population will be no more.
Since its first journey to Fereydunkenar in 2007, Omid has been flying to Fereydunkenar in the first week of the eighth Iranian calendar month of Aban falling on the last week of October.
‘Omid’ is 135cm long and its voice is gentle, melodious and resonant, its feathers are pure white, hence its alternative name ‘snow crane’.
There are only 3,200 Siberian cranes left in the world, most of which belong to the eastern population and wintering in the Poyang Basin in China, while ‘Omid’ is the last remaining bird from the western population which prefers to spend winter in Iran and, previously, India.
Fereydunkenar wetland on the Caspian Sea has one of the richest ecosystems among the northern cities of Iran and hosts thousands of migratory birds each year, including various types of coots, ducks, herons, grebes, and swans.