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Burundi police in a flap over 'spying' stork
By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg
(Filed: 12/11/2001)
SOUTH African ornithologists are trying to secure the release of a white stork, fitted with a tracking device to monitor bird migration, which has been "arrested" in Burundi on suspicion of spying. The stork, named Saturn, is part of a research project by Cape Town University's avian demography department studying the birds' annual migration between Europe and Africa. Prof Les Underhill, the unit director, said Saturn had probably landed to feed and had apparently been seized by villagers in Burundi's Muyinga province who became suspicious of the tracking device on its back. He said: "Saturn was handed to the police who notified us by e-mail. I replied asking them to release the bird. We have heard nothing since." The university has asked for help from the South African army's peace-keeping force which is in Burundi.
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