Charity left with £2,000 phone bill after stork flew off with a SIM card

  • 14 Jul - 20 Jul, 2018
  • Mag The Weekly
  • Mag Files

They say that the stork delivers babies to their mothers, but all this one brought to a wildlife charity was an absolutely massive phone bill. Polish environmental group EcoLogic had fitted a white stork, called Kajtka, with a tracker in an attempt to track his migratory habits. They logged Kajtka’s winter migration route through Africa, and were preparing for his spring return, but after travelling over 3,700 miles to the Blue Nile Valley in eastern Sudan, all contact was lost.

EcoLogic told the Super Express that that somebody mugged the bird of its tracker, and put the SIM card in their own phone before racking up more than 20 hours of calls. Now the charity has been told that they must pay more than 10,000 polish zloty (£2,064), for the usage.

Stork-tagging plays an important role in environmentalists’ research and conservation of migratory birds, and data from GPS trackers can be used to help scientists assess birds’ habits, social behaviour and threats.

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