A striking image has been circulating online showing an eagle carrying a tracking device alongside a map covered with thousands of purple flight paths.
The caption claims that one eagle was tracked for 20 years, traveling across Europe, the Middle East and Africa before eventually dying in Saudi Arabia.
It sounds incredible.
But there’s a major problem with the story:
The map does NOT show the 20-year journey of one eagle.
The map actually shows 20 different eagles
The purple lines represent the movements of 20 juvenile Steppe Eagles (Aquila nipalensis) that were fitted with tracking devices in western Kazakhstan in 2018.
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Researchers then followed their movements for roughly 10 months.
Each line represents the journey of an individual eagle—not one bird traveling back and forth for two decades. Fact Crescendo Myanmar
That’s why the map looks so complicated. You’re actually looking at the combined movements of many birds.
