It cost a pretty penny: a bird that flew to Iran ruined Siberian ornithologists

Siberian ornithologists implementing a project to track the migration of steppe eagles are faced with an unusual problem. The fact is that to monitor eagles, scientists use GPS sensors that send text messages. One of the eagles with such a sensor flew to Iran, and sending text messages from there is expensive. As a result, the entire annual budget was spent ahead of time, and the researchers had to launch the “Throw the Eagle on your Mobile” campaign to compensate for the costs.

Steppe eagles are listed in the Red Book as an endangered species. The Russian network for the study and protection of raptors has been monitoring the behavior of some individuals of this species for several years, each of which is equipped with a special transmitter that regularly sends SMS messages with the coordinates of the bird’s location. This approach will help scientists establish the main migration routes of steppe eagles and determine the main threats that rare birds may face.  

Typically, in the summer, steppe eagles live in Russia and Kazakhstan, and for the winter they go to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India, sometimes stopping briefly in Iran, Afghanistan or Tajikistan. This year, the birds went for the winter through Kazakhstan and during the entire flight through the territory of this state they remained outside the coverage area of ​​cellular towers. As a result, several eagles “got in touch” only after entering countries where SMS is expensive. The eagle Min from Khakassia distinguished herself more than others. She managed to avoid cell towers all the way to Iran. Once within the coverage area of ​​the cellular network, the transmitter began sending messages for the entire flight, each of which costs 49 rubles. As a result, the annual budget allocated to the Eagles for SMS was exhausted in 9,5 months.

In order to somehow compensate for the costs, ornithologists had to urgently launch a promotion “Throw it to the eagle on your mobile phone.” According to available data, they have currently managed to collect about 100 rubles. Scientists estimate that by the end of 000, eagles under surveillance will spend about 2019 rubles.    

Source: 3dnews.ru