Polish environmental group EkoLogiczna recently had to pay a massive phone bill, after the SIM card in a GPS tracker they put on the back of a white stork, so it could collect data about the bird’s winter migration route, got stolen.

In April 2017, members of EkoLogiczna fit Kajtek, a white stork, with a GPS tracker so they could monitor his migration route to Africa, as well as his feeding habits. In the next year, the bird flew around 6,000 km and EkoLogiczna was able to collect the data they wanted, but in February of this years, something weird happened. On his way back from Africa to Poland, Kajtek stopped in Sudan, and “for unknown reasons” remained in the area for over two months, “travelling 25 kms in different directions during the day”. Then, on April 26, they lost the signal completely.

Photo: Carlos Delgado/Wikimedia Commons

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Last month, EkoLogiczna was shocked to receive a phone bill linked to the SIM in Kajtek’s GPS tracker, for a whopping 10,000 PLN ($2,663). The explanation was pretty simple to figure out.

“Someone quite simply removed the card from the tracker, put it in a phone and used it for 20 hours of communication,” the Polish environmental group wrote on its Facebook page. It’s not clear what happened to Kajtek the stork…

 

Source: Super Express (Polish)