EcoLogic Environmental Group just wanted to track white stork migratory habits, not distribute free phone calls in Africa. White storks summer in Europe and migrate to Africa for winter. But a sim card is a sim card, and the one EcoLogic installed last year in the GPS tracker fitted on the back of a stork named Kajtek also worked in a mobile phone. The group had been monitoring Kajtek’s movements since August 2017.
They tracked Kajtek and posted progress online. The bird migrated over 3,700 miles from Poland to Africa and EcoLogic was waiting to track his return flight north. He began on February 1st and after 10 days reached the Blue Nile Valley in Sudan. And stayed there for unknown reasons, moving around the same area daily until April 26 when they lost contact.
Then, on June 7, the $2,700 phone bill arrived.
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This is Kajtek wearing his GPS transmitter.
EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up 20 hours' worth of phone calls. [...]
Stork-tagging plays an important role in environmentalists' research and conservation of migratory birds, and data from micro-GPS trackers can be used to help scientists assess birds' habits, social behaviour and threats.
Although the white stork is not currently at risk, industrialisation and the draining of wetlands pushed the species towards near-extinction in Europe some fifty years ago.
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