On May 10th the BBC News website published a report titled “Israel probes Golan Heights mass vulture poisoning”.
Towards the end of the article readers found the following:
“The Golan Heights are home to a range of wildlife, including types of birds of prey, although the vulture population of the Israeli-occupied part has dropped precipitously over the past 20 years.
Many have been poisoned, allegedly by local farmers whose herds are threatened by the birds, Israeli news website Walla says.” [emphasis added]
Anyone with even minimal understanding would know that vultures are scavengers and do not pose any threat whatsoever to livestock such as the beef cattle and sheep that are raised in the Golan Heights.
Obviously then no fact-checking was done before that statement was printed but did it actually come, as claimed, from the “Israeli news website Walla”?
By the time this BBC article was published Walla had posted one report on the story in which the writer, Eli Ashkenazi, states:
הסיבה המרכזית להיעלמות הנשרים מרמת הגולן היא הרעלות לא חוקיות שנעשות בעיקר על ידי מגדלי בקר המנסים לפגוע בטורפים הפוגעים בעדריהם
“The main reason for the disappearance of vultures from the Golan Heights is illegal poisoning done mainly by cattle ranchers trying to hurt predators which harm their herds.”
In the Golan Heights, those predators are mainly wolves.
In other words a combination of bad translation and failure to check facts led to the BBC misinforming its audiences even on this straightforward story. So much for “news that you can trust”.
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