Egypt’s police put a duck under arrest late Friday as a device was found attached to its feathers, fueling accusations that it might have been used for espionage, Al-Ahram Arabic-language news website reported.The story was later updated to say it was a stork, not a duck.
According to Al-Ahram's Arabic site, a fisherman in the Nile River of Egypt’s southern governorate Qena caught the accused bird, which was among a group of five ducks waddling in the freshwater.
The fisherman became suspicious that the device on the duck's body could be used for spying, prompting him to hand over the bird to the Coalition of Arab Tribes in Qena, who in turn filed a police report.
An anonymous security official told Ahram Online on Saturday that security and environmental experts are currently examining the device in order to determine its intended purposes and whether or not the little bird has repeated national secrets to anyone.
Arabic media say that the stork is suspected of being in service of Israel, which - they say - has been known to spy on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries using birds.
Qena's security head stated that the devices were not explosive.
It's about time I added a new creature to the canonical list of Zionist spy animals. Since that article we've added puffer fish, super-rhinoceroses, a spy vulture, and the Turkish spy bird.
(h/t Gidon)