Andean Condor

A tracked condor was recorded flying more than five hours and 170 kilometres with a single flap, riding thermals and orographic lift off the Andean ridgelines. The economy is necessary: at up to fifteen kilograms, powered flight is close to impossible, so the bird waits for the mountain to provide the air.

Scavengers are poisoned by proxy. Lead fragments in the carcasses of shot animals accumulate in condors, and carcasses laced deliberately to kill pumas or foxes take condors instead — mass mortality events of dozens of birds at a single bait are documented in Argentina. The parallel with diclofenac collapsing Asian vulture populations is exact: the birds are not the target, and it does not matter.