Official News page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: BEWARE THE GIANT VULTURE

by Hazed

There's a giant vulture on the loose in the Scottish skies, and it could attack aircraft - pilots have been warned to keep an eye out for it, because it "poses a genuine threat to airplanes". My god, what kind of super-mutant vulture is it?

Well, it's a seven-year-old female called Gandalf, a Rueppell's Griffon Vulture - you can see a picture if you click the link at the end of the story - and while it's not as big as a plane it does have a wingspan of 10 and a half feet which is pretty giant. The problem is that these birds have been recorded at heights of over 36,000 feet and if she collides with a plane it could do quite a lot of damage. With that wingspan, she's actually half the size of a helicopter or a small training aircraft so could take one of them out, and even a full-sized passenger plane could suffer if she flies into it, accordingly to a spokesman for Cumbernauld Airport.

Gandolf lives at World of Wings where she takes part in a daily display, but last week she vanished. Center director David Richie said, "She was taking part in her daily display and started to soar. She got caught in the wind and just went higher and higher until she disappeared.

"We would warn people not to approach her but to call the police. She has no fear of humans and she could give someone a very severe bite. Her beak is designed to tear flesh apart."

Scary!

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