Vulture Accused of Spying for Israel

Does Dr. Doolittle work for the Mossad?

I ask because the Arab world appears to believe that even the animals are conspiring against them. Earlier I wrote about villagers in Turkey capturing a kestrel and paranoid academics at Firat University calling it a spy. (Complete details here.)

Now eagle–eyed (no pun intended) villagers at Bint Jbeil in Lebanon have apprehended a vulture and accused it of the same offense.


I don’t mean to be a Chicken Little, but someone must be persuading gullible members of the animal kingdom to try a life of espionage.

I suppose being a poster–bird for Israel beats being an avian member of ISIS when you consider the Israelis have electric power 24 hours a day.

This particular vulture came under suspicion when villagers captured it and found an Israeli ID tag and a GPS transmitter on its back. The ID tag is not really incriminating. No real spy would be found out that easily.

After all, does James Bond have an MI6 tattoo?

The GPS transmitter, however, is more problematic. Who ever heard of a bird that needed Google Maps to get around or paper maps for that matter?

Then we learn through CNN, the transmitter wasn’t for the bird, it was for scientists at Tel Aviv University who were tracking the vulture as “part of a conservation project to restore the raptors in the Middle East.”

One must assume the scientists were tracking the bird to see where it nested and not to get recommendations on places to find a good meal.

Either bit of information was too much for the villagers. They took what they believed to be incriminating photos of the bird and its technology array as village strong men were holding it.

The local Arabic news service, bintjbeil.org, claims the bird was released after counter–intelligence became “certain that it was not carrying any hostile [spying] equipment.”

But like so much other reporting from the Middle East, I have my doubts regarding its veracity. I have yet to meet the large bird that will agree to docilely submit to a photo session with suspicious humans or a body cavity search by Hamas.

And since its supposed release, university researchers have not been able to receive any signal from the tracking device.

I fear the voyaging vulture has become another collateral casualty of the Middle East conflict.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. He is president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation and chairman of the League of American Voters. Mike is an in-demand speaker with Premiere. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.