Rare eagle sneaks into Iran and drains Siberian ornithologists’ funds by spamming costly text messages

25 Oct, 2019 08:13 / Updated 12 days ago

A Russian bird conservation group has discovered a sudden hole in their budget after one of the eagles they were tracking started bombarding them with hundreds of expensive text messages from Iran.

Roaming is one big headache when you travel a lot, and raptors can get burned by it just as easily as the bipeds that created mobile phones. Just ask the Russian Raptor Research and Conservation Network (RRRCN), an environmental group whose eagle tracking budget was surprisingly drained by one particularly sneaky bird of prey.

The network studies the migration routes of various birds, including the endangered steppe eagle. They do so by putting solar-powered GPS trackers on their subjects. The device records the coordinates of the birds and dumps the data via text messages through a regular mobile network when it’s available. The conservationists then check the routes against potential threats like high-voltage power lines or poison baits deployed for pest control and try to find ways to avoid them.

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Incredible Map Shows Flight Routes of Eagles Over the Course of One Year

By Jessica Stewart on March 6, 2019

A young man named Fahd Qash from Saudi Arabia stumbled upon something unusual while out on a walk. Strolling near a swamp, he spotted a dead eagle with a tracking device strapped to it. Curious, Qash noticed that the GPS tracker had an email address printed on it. It turns out that the device was fitted to the eagle in Kazakstan as part of a study of the flight paths of Steppe eagles.

This particular eagle was one of 20 that had been tracked since 2018 and the resulting map of their travels is astonishing. Interestingly, they all appear to conspicuously avoid flying over water, as the Caspian Sea, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf are all free from their trails. Earlier mistranslations of the news caused some outlets to report that the flight path was for one eagle over the course of 20 years, but experts have pointed out that this would be nearly impossible. For one, the OrniTrack device the eagle is wearing was not available 20 years ago—not to mention the lifespan of the batteries being too short.

Despite this initial misinterpretation of the study, there’s still plenty of interesting information on the map. For one, it seems to indicate that there’s a clear aerial highway that the eagles follow during their winter migration. As one commenter pointed out, there would be plenty of drinking water available on the steppes, hence there not being a need to fly over the sea in order to hydrate.

Some trails seem to fall off abruptly, which indicates that some of the eagles—like the one that was found—died and stopped moving. To get a sense of how much ground an eagle can cover in one day, a 2012 study by the group British Birds indicates that they can fly up to 220 miles (355 km) in one day and are constantly on the move between migration, breeding, and wintering.

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New Rare, Endangered Bird Species Found in Nepal

Three rare bird species belonging to the bird family of Accipitridae were spotted in a community forest in Gorkha

Nepal is known for its rich biodiversity profile backed by a supportive climate that favors various kinds of flora and fauna.

Over the years, the Himalayan nation has left its unique mark in conserving and identifying various endangered species. Here is another update from the country on similar lines!

According to a recent update, three rare species of birds belonging to the bird family of Accipitridae were spotted in a community forest in Gorkha region.

The community forest is already home to 99 species of bird varieties and researchers were happy about finding three new species: White-Rumped Vulture, Asian Woolyneck Stork and Steppe Eagle.

This is the result of a seven-month-long research by Kushal Shrestha and his team in the region. As part of their research, the team also found another bird called ‘Spiny Babbler’ found to be available only in Nepal.

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Steppe Eagles under threat

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Mumbai: The serious threat from the veterinary drug - diclofenac - to various species of vultures has been known for a long time. Research now shows that the killer drug seems to be preying upon other birds of prey too. A paper published today in the Cambridge University Press journal - Bird Conservation International – by scientists from BNHS-India, UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, has revealed that two Steppe Eagles found dead at a cattle carcass dump in Rajasthan had diclofenac residue in their tissues.

Steppe Eagles under threat

The recent findings based on the tests carried out on the bodies of the two Steppe Eagles found in Rajasthan showed the same clinical signs of kidney failure as seen in Gyps vultures after they had ingested diclofenac. Researchers have observed extensive visceral gout, lesions and uric acid deposits in the liver, kidney and spleen of the two birds and diclofenac residue in the tissues.

Steppe Eagle is a winter visitor to most areas in northern and central India and some areas in western and eastern India. It also feeds on carcass dumps. Other species of Aquila eagles that are known to frequent carcass dumps include Tawny Eagle, Eastern Imperial Eagle and Indian Spotted Eagle. Steppe Eagle is closely related to Golden Eagle found in the UK, the vulnerable Spanish Imperial Eagle and other globally vulnerable or declining Eurasian eagles. Scientists now fear that all species in this genus, known as Aquila, are susceptible to diclofenac. With fourteen species of Aquila eagles distributed across Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and North America, this means that diclofenac poisoning should now be considered a global problem.

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