Zoological conspiracy theories involving
Israel are occasionally found in the media or on the
Internet, typically in
Muslim-majority countries, alleging use of animals to attack civilians or conduct
espionage. These conspiracies are often reported as evidence of a
Zionist or Israeli plot. Examples include the
December 2010 shark attacks in Egypt,
Hezbollah claims of capturing Israeli spying eagles, and the 2011 capture in
Saudi Arabia of a
griffon vulture carrying a
GPS wildlife tracking device which was said to be part of a "Zionist plot", a claim dismissed by Israeli wildlife officials as ludicrous. Writing in
The Times,
James Hider linked the responses to the shark incident with those to the vulture incident and ascribed the reactions in Arab countries to "paranoia among Israel's enemies and its nominal friends," adding that "evidence of Mossad using animals is scant."
Jackson Diehl of
The Washington Post said that Arab media and officials who circulate fantasies of Mossad sharks and spy birds "deserve to be mocked." Diehl wrote that the paranoia in fact has also a more benign explanation, since Israel's real covert operations "are almost as fantastic as the fantasies."
Gil Yaron wrote in
The Toronto Star that "Many animals undoubtedly serve in Israel's army and security services: dogs sniff out bombs and alpaca help mountaineers carry their loads. [...] But tales about the use of sharks, birds, rodents or, as has also been claimed, insects in the service of the military are more the fruit of imagination than hard fact." According to an avian ecologist for the
Israel's Nature and Parks Authority, the idea that tagged birds are used for spying is absurd. "Birds and other wildlife belongs to all of us and we have to cooperate," he stated. "Ignorance causes these stupid beliefs that they are used for spying."
Kestrel was subjected to medical examinations at
Firat University in Turkey after being identified as an "Israeli spy". In 2013, a kestrel carrying an Israeli foot band was discovered by villagers in the
Elazığ Province, Turkey. Initially, medical personnel at
Firat University identified the bird as an "Israeli Spy" in their registration documents, but
X-ray scans and other tests found no electronic equipment. No charges were filed and the kestrel was freed and allowed to continue its flight.
Bee-eater In May 2012, a dead
European bee-eater with an Israeli leg-band, used by naturalists to track migratory birds, was found near the southeastern Turkish city of
Gaziantep. The villagers worried that the bird was carrying a micro-chip from
Israeli intelligence and alerted local officials. The head of the Agriculture and Livestock Provincial Directorate in Gaziantep examined the corpse and stated that "the nose of the bird is very different and much lighter than others" and that it "can be used for audio and video," which, "in the case of Israel, they do." A counter-terrorism unit that was called in assured villagers that it was common to equip migratory birds with rings in order to track their movements.
BBC correspondent,
Jonathan Head, described the incident as part of the "wildly implausible conspiracy theories" that take root in Turkey, with "alleged Israeli plots among the most widely believed."
Vultures In December 2012, a
Sudanese newspaper reported that the Sudan government had captured a
vulture in the town of Kereinek, which they said was an Israeli spy bird and was tagged in
Hebrew and equipped with electronic devices. Ohad Hazofe, the avian ecologist, told Israeli news site
Ynet: "This is a young vulture that was tagged, along with 100 others, in October. He has two wing bands and a German-made GPS chip." Hazofe denied that the device had any photographic capabilities. In an interview with
CNN, he stated that "I'm not an intelligence expert, but what would be learned from putting a camera onto a vulture? You cannot control it. It's not a
drone that you can send where you want. What would be the benefit of watching a vulture eat the insides of a dead
camel?"
Eagles In 2013,
Hezbollah claimed that an Israeli spying eagle had been captured in Lebanon. The eagle that had been shot down, and delivered to Hezbollah, was a young and endangered
Bonelli's eagle. Israeli ornithologist Yossi Leshem said he was tracking the bird for research and was "incredibly frustrated" it was killed.
Griffon vultures The
griffon vulture has nearly disappeared from the mountains of Israel and is the subject of a
reintroduction project. As part of that project, vultures are tagged with radios and labels to keep track of the population. In 2011, a griffon vulture with a wingspan of about was caught by a hunter near
Ha'il,
Saudi Arabia wearing a GPS device and a "
Tel Aviv University" leg tag. Rumors spread among locals, repeated in some Saudi newspapers, that the bird was sent by Israel to spy on the country. Israeli officials described the rumor as "ludicrous" and said they were "stunned." The Israeli ornithologist Yossi Leshem of Tel Aviv University said that this was the third such detention of a bird tracked by Israeli scientists in three decades. He reported that Sudanese authorities detained an
Egyptian vulture in the late 1970s, and a
white pelican in the early 1980s, both carrying Israeli equipment used for
animal migration tracking. In January 2016, a griffon vulture with an Israeli tag was captured by residents of the Lebanese village of
Bint Jbeil on suspicion of espionage after flying four kilometers (2.5 miles) across the border. The bird was tied by rope and, according to Lebanese security officials, checked for listening devices. The bird was later repatriated to Israel by
UN peacekeepers.
Fish Sharks , one of the two species implicated in the
2010 Sharm El Sheikh shark attacks In December 2010,
several shark attacks occurred off the South
Sinai resort of
Sharm el-Sheikh in
Egypt. Following the attacks, in an interview on
Tawfik Okasha's popular but controversial
Egypt Today television show, a Captain Mustafa Ismail, introduced as "a famous diver," alleged that the
GPS tracking device found on one of the
sharks was in fact a "guiding device" planted by Israeli agents. Prompted in a television interview for comments, the governor of
South Sinai, Mohammad Abdul Fadhil Shousha, initially said: "What is being said about the
Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm." The
Israeli foreign ministry, in response, suggested that Shousha had seen "
Jaws one time too many." The governor later dismissed any connection between the event and Israel. Describing the conspiracy connection to Israel as "sad," Professor Mahmoud Hanafy, a marine biologist at
Suez Canal University, pointed out that GPS devices are used by marine biologists to track sharks, not to remote-control them. Egyptian officials suggested that the attacks were due to overfishing, illegal feeding, the dumping overboard of sheep carcasses, or unusually high water temperatures. Amr Yossef, adjunct professor of political science at the
American University in Cairo, wrote that this and other similar conspiracy theories result from a misconception among the Egyptian public that Israel is all-powerful. Yossef wrote, "Notwithstanding that such allegations have no factual or logical grounds, no one stops to ask why should an Israel facing serious security challenges (
Iran,
Hamas,
Hezbollah, etc.) busy itself with that kind of stuff."
Mammals Mammals have been used by the
Israel Defense Forces since its inception in 1948. Among the mammals that have been cited in Israel-related animal conspiracy theories are
swine,
hyenas,
rodents, and a
dolphin.
Dolphins named K-Dog used by the
U.S. Navy for hunting
mines The first accusation that Israel employs dolphins for espionage was made on 19 August 2015 when the
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas claimed they captured one wearing cameras and other equipment off the
Gaza coast. Iran's
Fars News Agency called it instead an "Israeli-made robot dolphin equipped with espionage equipment, including video-recording cameras." "Israel did not just stop at the bloody attacks against the Gaza Strip," the Arabic-language Palestinian daily
al-Quds reported. "Now it has recruited a watery pet, the dolphin, known for his friendship with humans, to use for operations to kill Qassam Brigade Naval Commandos." The
Israel Defense Forces did not respond to the accusation, but
Foreign Policy magazine noted that while "dolphins have been used by various militaries, including by both the
United States and
Russia, this report likely falls into what is a surprisingly fertile genre of conspiracy theories: the notion that Israeli intelligence routinely uses all manner of birds and other animals as tools of espionage." Nonetheless, in January 2022, a masked spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades claimed in a video message that Israeli security forces had recently used another dolphin to chase Hamas frogmen off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
Rats Allegations involving rats was on the news on 13 March 2018, when Jordanian TV host Dr. Bakr Al-Abadi told his viewers on Jordanian Prime TV: "The Zionist entity gathered all the rats carrying the
Bubonic plague in
Norway, and released them in all the Egyptian provinces near the Sinai. According to several Egyptian sources, this operation took place in 1967, and these rats still exist in very large numbers. These rats breed very quickly and cause significant harm to crops. They devour these crops very quickly, and destroy grain silos. Even children are not safe from them. These rats often bite children's limbs. According to these sources, the Zionist entity, since the beginning of the normalization of its ties with
Cairo, managed to smuggle chemical fertilizers and rotten seeds into Egypt, leading to the destruction of vast areas of soil and crops in Egypt. This is a well-planned strategic operation, with both short-term and long-term implications, but the clear goal is to annihilate the
Arab world."
Cattle On 27 December 2022,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian National Authority, reported that Rushd Morrar, a village elder of Khirbet Yanun near
Nablus, claimed that Israeli
cattle are "recruited and trained" spies. "These are recruited and trained cattle, as on the neck of each cow they hang a medallion with an eavesdropping and recording device on it, and sometimes cameras, in order to monitor every detail in Khirbet Yanun large and small," he said, and repeated the assertion that "settlers release herds of wild boars" to destroy Palestinian crops.
Reptiles In February 2018,
Hassan Firouzabadi, a military advisor to Iranian supreme leader
Ali Khamenei, accused Western countries, including Israel, of spying on Iranian nuclear sites using lizards and chameleons, which according to him attract "atomic waves." "We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the
Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities," he said. == Supernatural warfare ==