This is a true love story. A male stork flies 14,000 kilometers every year to reunite with his beloved wife. They stayed together for 19 years until one of them died. Their loyalty and keeping their promises have touched thousands of people.
The story begins in 1993, in a small village called Brodski Varos in Croatia. Stjepan Vokic, a man who was working as a janitor at the school at that time While fishing, I discovered a female white stork that had been shot by a hunter and lay dying by the river. Wokic felt pity, so he took it home and took care of it carefully.
Under his care, the female stork gradually recovered, but due to its broken wings, it could no longer fly. Seeing that it was pitiful, Wojic built a bird's nest on the roof of his house, adopted it, and often went to the river to catch fish for it to eat. Wojic gave it a name: Malena (local language, meaning "small").
The wetlands of the Sava River in Croatia are a paradise for storks, with an estimated 1,500 stork nests across the country. But every autumn, the white storks in Croatia fly to spend the winter near Cape Town, South Africa, 14,000 kilometers away (they tested GPS on the white storks), and it takes more than a month to fly one way. Whenever winter comes, Wokic will take it into the house to avoid the cold.
One morning in the spring of 2002, Malena's phoenix nest attracted a male stork, and the two storks fell in love at first sight. Vokic was very happy and named the male stork Klepetan (meaning: the sound the bird makes with its beak). Since Malena could not fly, Klepetan would fly to the river every day to catch fish for his wife.
In late autumn, the white storks began to migrate, but Klepetan did not rush to follow the group, but stayed by Marlena's side. Wojic guessed that it was waiting for Marlena to leave with her, but Marlena Despite her efforts, Na couldn't fly. Out of the instinct of migration, Klepetan finally left.
Vokic felt quite sorry at first, thinking that Klepetan might not come back after leaving. In order to comfort Marlena, Vokic specially brought him into the room and showed him the photos of "their little ones" he had taken before. Videos of the couple's daily life were played to Marlena to relieve her pain of lovesickness.
Unexpectedly, the next spring, Klepetan came back to live with Marlena. In this way, Klepetan was the last to leave every year, and the first to return the following spring.
From then on, every year when Klepetan was about to arrive, Waukic would prepare a bucket of fish in advance to welcome Klepetan's arrival. The two of them became stars in the village of Varos. After their story was made into a video and shared online, some people even traveled thousands of miles to visit them.
Later, the media traveled to the small village of Varoš every year, and through live broadcast, more than 1 million people watched every year, to see if Klepetan would return to the stork in his life. No one questions his loyalty, but everyone is eager to see if he can survive another dangerous journey from South Africa to the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Sinai and the deserts of Iraq all the way to Croatia. The most dangerous part of the journey is the 200-kilometer stretch over Lebanon, where more than 2 million migratory birds are killed every year. Fortunately, over the past 10 years or so, it has always found its way home, proving that true love really does return in the spring.
In 2017, another white stork with a GPS Tesla was hunted in Syria . Wojic was worried that Klepetan would also suffer the same misfortune, so he used Klepetan's feathers ( pen) wrote to Lebanese President Mr. Aoun, asking him to sign a law banning bird hunting during migration. He actually gave Klepetan's feather to President Aoun and asked him to use it to sign new laws. At the same time, he also posted the content of the letter online as an open letter in the form of text and video, and collected online signatures. The feather proved to be more powerful than the sword.(Please see the last three pictures for the content of this letter)
Over the years, this pair of white storks gave birth to a total of 66 storks. In addition to taking care of his wife, Klepetan was also responsible for teaching the children to learn to fly and leading them to migrate together.
In March 2019, Klepetan did not come back, but four other white storks came back (guessed they may be their children). "Four of the (birds) came and started making some very sad noises. I thought Klepetan was dead," Wokic said.
At that time, he thought that Klepetan might have died of old age, or that he had been hunted in Lebanon. Later, he estimated that he might have been injured, because Klepetan came back in April 2020.
In 2021, the 19-year relationship ended with the death of Marlena, who died after not eating for 11 days.
"I noticed that he was unwell on June 9th. This was when the weather was first starting to get hot. He wanted to catch up to Klepetan, but he couldn't. He fell over and I carried him in "It didn't want to eat or drink. It was like it wanted to end its life because it was a shame for the stork to fall." Vokic added: "It passed away peacefully, closed on one of my knees. Eyes on."
"The Klepetan comes every night and I tell it, 'Marlena is gone now, Klepetan' and I bury it in its favorite place, where it always is. Waiting for its husband,” Wokic said.
Letter to the Lebanese President
He added that he would welcome Klepetan to his position if it came back next year.
In 2017, a documentary told the story of The Old Man and the Stork.
Their story was also written into a book "Malena and Klepetan - A Love Story on the Wings" (Picture 10)
The Croatian Tourism Board produced an animated video of Klepetan and Malena To promote Croatia (Figure 11), the video prompted Lebanon to later adopt protective measures for migratory birds.
Croatia Tourism Board promotional video
The following is a letter from Vokic to the President of Lebanon:
