Tuesday (1/4/11) the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Weeam, claimed a vulture, "R65" tagged with the words, "Tel Aviv University," was detained as a Mossad spy. Donning a leg bracelet and transmitter, apparently placed by Israeli ornithologists evaluating bird migration patterns, the vulture was found in a rural area of The Kingdom. Seven vultures banded in Israel during the last few years are known to have reached Saudi Arabia. Transmissions from four of them have ceased and they are presumed dead. One vulture -- in addition to R65 -- apparently is still alive and "airborne" over Saudi Arabia, after wintering in The Sudan.Notwithstanding these realities, the Al-Weeam report claimed the migratory tracking study was "a Zionist plot," which triggered a deluge of posts on Arabic websites, insisting that "Zionists" were training such birds for espionage. A bird ecologist (and eminently rational human being) for the Israeli Nature and Parks...(Read Full Post)