They're at it again

The Middle East is full of animal espionage. Iranians caught 14 spying squirrels in 2007, and then, spying pigeons in 2008.

Now, authorities in Saudi Arabia have detained a vulture on suspicion of being an Israeli agent.

The vulture was wearing a GPS transmitter labelled as belonging to Tel Aviv University, so what other explanation could there be, right?

Israeli authorities claim that the transmitter is simply part of a conservation project. But the pigeons that spied on Iran aren't the only birds who've done international undercover work: Pigeons were used to deliver messages during the two World Wars, and were even awarded medals. And showing that they're not picky about who they work for, more recently, pigeons smuggled cellphones into a prison in Brazil.

And it's not just birds and small land-based furry things. When sharks attacked tourists in the Red Sea last year, an Egyptian official suggested it was an Israeli intelligence plot to disrupt tourism in his country. Many thought it was ridiculous to imagine ocean wildlife being used in espionage. But did you know that the US Navy has a Marine Mammal Training Program? Sure, they're supposedly just used for protection and mine detection and that sort of thing. But that's what they'd tell us, right?

So let's hope the vulture receives a fair trial, but without speciesism: as readers of this blog well know, just being an animal is the last thing that should be enough to get it off the hook.


Vultures suspiciously interested in our communications technology by Flickr user Starwatcher307.

Animal espionage dogs Iranians

The news business has fallen on hard times. How can you doubt it when you can't find any followup to this story from 2007:

Iranian Police Smash Squirrel Spy Ring

SKY NEWS UK Thursday July 12, 2007
Police in Iran are reported to have taken 14 squirrels into custody - because they are suspected of spying.

The rodents were found near the Iranian border allegedly equipped with eavesdropping devices.

The reports have come from the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

The IRNA said that the squirrels were kitted out by foreign intelligence services - but they were captured two weeks ago by police officers.

A Foreign Office source told Sky News: "The story is nuts."

Of course the Foreign office would deny it, but outside experts were also dubious about the accusations against the squirrels. When asked by NPR about the possibility of training squirrels to be spies, professor John Koprowski, co-author of North American Tree Squirrels, suggested that it would be difficult to "channel their elusiveness" into "constructive activity" in the field.

Still, clearly there were squirrels lurking suspiciously near the border - and their fate seems to be unknown. But that hasn't stopped other species from getting into the game, since Iran also arrested some spying pigeons near a nuclear facility in 2008.

Asked to comment on the pigeon story, one diplomat told Sky News, "It's clear there has been some sort of coo in Tehran."

Perhaps there's a bright side to all the sneaky bad behavior on the part of animals in the Middle East. With all the zoos downsizing due to the state of the economy, maybe some of those unemployed keepers can get work as prison staff in Iran.

Squirrel by, once again, the excellent Misterqueue.