Summary: JEDDAH: Earlier this week, a griffon vulture was captured in the Hail area and brought to the local authorities for examination. Attached to it were two rings (one metal and the other plastic), a small device with a 10cm antenna and a wing tag originating from Israel.
By ROGER HARRISON | ARAB NEWS
The black wing tag (identity code X63) indicated that the bird had been previously caught, tagged and released. But what caught investigators' attention was the small device that the vulture wore as a backpack with a harness.
Investigators first thought that the blue device was most likely a tracking device of some sort. Its shape, with a stubby aerial, was unlike any they knew.
Most devices are simple rectangular boxes designed to minimize chafing. The blue plastic Hail device, however, had two integral but protruding battery pods, which suggest that it was designed for extended use over long periods of time.
Enquiries to the Israeli source of the ring tag received the reply that the device was a standard piece of microwave telemetry. The evidence in front of the authorities suggested that the device was nothing of the sort, increasing their interest.
There are four types of telemetry commonly used for tracking wildlife: GPS data loggers, satellite transmitters, GSM units that work over telephone networks and VHF transmitters.
The device is almost certainly not a GSM unit or a VHF transmitter. The former would need to be connected to the Saudi telephone system and the latter requires its trackers to be very close -- a matter of a few hundred meters. It could, however, possibly be a GPS data logger.
The device is now under investigation. There is no suggestion from the authorities that it is a spying device, or that there is any connection with Mossad. Those rumors developed from Internet chat rooms and were picked up by mainstream news carriers. An online newspaper carried the story saying that the bird was an eagle labeled X65; this story was strangely illustrated with a roost of vultures. The Jewish Chronicle Online in Friday's edition reported it as R65. However, the Hail vulture was, according to our sources, labeled X63.
The griffon vulture was removed to Thumama wildlife reserve outside Riyadh where, far from being arrested, it is being well cared for and, according to Dr. Mohammed Shobrak who has been in close contact with the vet tending the bird, will be released when it has recovered from the trauma of capture and multiple handling.
Shobrak is a world expert on the lappet vulture and vultures in general, and has spent much of his life studying and tracking the birds. He is also the former director of the National Wildlife Research Center near Taif, working head of the Biology Department at Taif University and bird adviser to the Saudi Wildlife Commission.
"The antenna was not configured for GSM or VHF transmission," he said, adding that the device had no markings on it and that he felt this was unusual if it were a commercial wildlife tracker.
Another characteristic that has raised his interest is the bird's behavior. "It is quite tame, clearly used to being approached by humans. While it is in our care, it has been fed by hand," he said.
Animals have been used in covert and overt warfare for millennia. It is not impossible to imagine that, with the miniaturization of telemetry, a device for monitoring radar or microwave emissions could not be carried by a bird weighing 6 kg. Tracking devices on birds are usually a maximum of three percent of their body weight making the limit for the griffon about 180 grams, the weight of a medium size mobile phone or a device capable of monitoring and transmission tasks.
The vulture, a common sight in the Middle East, would make an ideal stealth airborne platform as one carrying a device would be invisible in a group of a dozen or so riding thermals.
The griffon vulture is a gregarious bird often roosting in flocks. It is not known for its amicability toward humans. Shobrak is deeply concerned by the find and the possible effect it will have on wildlife and vultures in the Kingdom in particular.
"The publicity surrounding the bird and the device, I fear, will encourage some people to attempt catching birds of prey to try to find another device and achieve a moment of celebrity," he said. "This would seriously interfere with long-term local and international research in a delicately balanced desert ecosystem."
Copyright: Arab News 2009 All rights reserved.
Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
No comments:
Post a Comment