Egypt detains 'French spy bird'

[Surya Gayatri]

In a case that ruffled feathers in Egypt, authorities have detained a migratory bird that a citizen suspected of being a spy.

A man in Egypt’s Qena governorate, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of Cairo, found the suspicious bird among four others near his home and brought them to a police station Friday, said Mohammed Kamal, the head of the security in the region.

There, officers and the man puzzled over the electronic device attached to the suspected winged infiltrator. On Saturday, a veterinary committee called by concerned government officials determined the device was neither a bomb nor a spying device.

Instead, they discovered it was a wildlife tracker used by French scientists to follow the movement of migrating birds, said Ayman Abdallah, the head of Qena veterinary services. Abdallah said the device stopped working when the bird crossed the French border, absolving it of being an avian Mata Hari.

Gives new meaning to the term "unmanned" spy craft!

Read more:
http://www.france24.com/en/20130901-egypt-detains-bird-tracked-french-scientists-suspected-spying

[dipsydoodle]

1. Oh - not Berenice then

French spy bird.....geddit ?

[Surya Gayatri]

3. You bad! Anyway "bird" in Am. English is "chick", and in French "nana"...

[alfredo]

7. A Bird can also mean prostitute.

[Blue_Tires]

10. I was hoping to god for something like that, too

[formercia]

2. Stork gets Dorked

No Baby delivered for You.

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Eygptian authorities thought it was a "swan"

until they took it to a vet who managed to identify the species!

[formercia]

5. To a Fellain', everything looks like a Swan.

Living in a Cactus Patch will do that to you.

[Igel]

6. When will the insanity end.

Oops. There's not an "s" in "inanity," is there?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/turkey-frees-israeli-spy-bird_n_3659596.html

Scary, that.

But I guess it's a good sign that the Egyptians are paranoid about the French and not just assuming that every spy most fowl is an Israeli agent.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. "spy most fowl..."? Boo on yoo for bad punning! LOL!

[Quantess]

9. Wrongful arrest!

Look at him, he's in jail, behind bars. Poor bird.

FREE FRENCHIE STORK!

[Eugene]

11. Arrested 'spy' stork killed and eaten after release in Egypt

Source: The Guardian

Arrested 'spy' stork killed and eaten after release in Egypt

Conal Urquhart
theguardian.com, Saturday 7 September 2013 15.33 BST

The stork that was detained by Egyptian police on suspicion of spying has been killed and eaten, days after its release.

Police detained the stork after a man saw a tag on it and caught it, suspecting it was a spying device. The stork had been tagged by zoologists to track its migration.

According to Nature Conservation Egypt, the White Stork, which they named Menes, was released into a conservation area in southern Egypt but flew to an island in the Nile where it was caught and eaten.

The group said on a Facebook post: "Storks have been part of the Nubian diet for thousands of years, so the actual act of eating storks is not in itself a unique practice. However, the short-lived success story of getting Menes released was not enough to keep him safe till he exited Egypt.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/07/arrested-spy-stork-killed-eaten-egypt

[Surya Gayatri]

12. Oh, nooooo! What a sad end for poor Menes...

Things must be pretty dire in Egypt if they're eating protected species. Well, I hope at least he fed someone who was really hungry!