Vietnam suspected pigeons, landing in Da Nang, to be Chinese spies

#DaNang #spypigeon #racingpigeons The pigeons, with wing markings and rings on their feet, have been arriving in the city of Da Nang in Vietnam since November 2014 and the locals suspecting them to be Chinese spies, have handed them over to the police.
There were a total of 16 pigeons and their sudden arrival in the coastal city were suspect because the relation between Vietnam and China have been under strain over territorial disputes related to the South China Sea. It may be recalled that tensions rose in 2014 after China moved an oil rig into waters that Vietnam has claimed to be theirs. That incident had led to violent protests.
However, police officers have assured the people that the pigeons were not spy birds but, birds that belonged to racing birds from nearby countries and the markings on their wings and the leg rings were identifiers of the racing pigeons. Incidentally, use of birds and animals for espionage activities is not new – during the II World War, pigeons have been successfully used for intelligence gathering.
More recently, in 2007, Iran had detained 14 squirrels found near a nuclear enrichment plant. It seems the squirrels were equipped with the spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act. Iranian police commander Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam had confirmed the report at the time.