The Daily Populous Wednesday March 11st, 2026 night edition
Authored by bbc.com and submitted by Non-Conventionnel-77

Decades after its release into the wild, a super-ageing, bone-crunching vulture called Balthazar reveals a major conservation success.

In the autumn of 2025, wildlife experts in the French Alps made a surprising discovery: a frail, weakened bearded vulture found lying on the ground turned out to be Balthazar, a bird released under a conservation programme in 1988, who had vanished from observations. Having been presumed dead, at over 37 years old, he is in fact the oldest bearded vulture ever to have been recorded in the wild.

Over his long life, Balthazar witnessed the return of his own species to Alpine skies and cliffs, as bearded vultures have soared back from local extinction.

Bearded vultures are majestic, cliff-nesting birds with wing spans of 2.5m (8.2ft) or more, about the size of a flying door. Their diet is one of their many intriguing features: they are thought to be the only animal that is ossivorous, meaning, they feed mainly on bones.

The Spanish name for bearded vulture, quebrantahuesos (bone-breaker), in fact hints at the complex acrobatics this diet involves. The birds scavenge bones from carcasses, then drop them onto rocks from a great height to smash them into smaller pieces. They often have favourite bone-breaking sites, known as ossuaries, close to their nests.

lew_rong on March 10th, 2026 at 16:41 UTC »

Really interesting read. I had no idea there's a bird species that mostly eats bones.

antiquemule on March 10th, 2026 at 14:19 UTC »

I remember one cruised close overhead our walking group in the French Alps above lake Geneva, where a few pairs breed. An unforgettable experience.