Branded flamingo from France journeys to Turkey

A 30-year-old branded flamingo from France's Rhone river has made its journey to Turkey via Tunisia and Italy.

The flamingo was branded in July 1990 and last seen in late June at Tuzgolu, Turkey's second-largest lake.

Environmental conservation officials in Turkey have been monitoring the flamingo -- currently the oldest on record in the country.

Researching the specimen's history, Biologists Kiraz Erciyas Yavuz, Murat Dogan and Nizamettin Yavuz said the data showed it was seen in Tunisia at three years old and by the age of eight, it had traveled back to Italy, returning to Tunisia when it was 23 and 27.

The distance between the location where the bird was branded in France was 4,400 kilometers (2,700 miles) away from where it was seen in Tuzgolu.

According to data from Turkey's Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, there are 600,000 flamingos in the world, 60,000 of which are in Turkey.

Last year, Tuzgolu hosted 20,000 flamingos, with up to a fourth of the flamingo population in Europe later seen in Turkey.

Flamingos that had previously been breeding irregularly every few years at Tuzgolu have begun to do so regularly at a colony in this region in recent years.