Main content
This programme will be available shortly after broadcast

The Flight Of The Vulture

Sacha Dench investigates the plight of one of the world's most persecuted birds

With their bald heads, fearsome talons, acid poo that strips paint and a penchant for rotting carcasses, the vulture has long been shouldered with negative associations of death and dishonour. This taboo often puts them bottom of the list for conservation projects. Nevertheless, their unique biological niche make them a keystone animal in every environment they live in. And in nearly every one, they're in danger.
Sacha Dench, the UN Ambassador for Migratory Species, paramotor pilot and fearless adventurer, travels around the world to visit three different vulture species with extraordinary stories of persecution and survival, and finds out there's more to them than meets the eye.
In India, a new and mysterious illness brought a species to the brink of survival, while researchers race to discover the cause. In Guinea-Bissau, birds are butchered in their thousands to feed a black market in their body parts. And in Zimbabwe, the vultures become collateral damage in the bloody war between poachers, and anti-poaching squads.
Sacha tells the story of a deeply misunderstood and endangered creature, through the eyes of those who live and work alongside them around the world
But if you really want to get inside the head of one of the largest birds on earth, there's only one way to do it. In the air. Sacha takes to the skies in her paramotor to fly alongside these magnificent birds, wing-tip to wing-tip, as they spiral gently upwards on the desert thermals.

Didn't think you could love a vulture? We're about to change your mind.

Release date:

27 minutes

On radio

Thursday 02:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Thursday 02:32GMT
  • Thursday 09:32GMT
  • Thursday 20:06GMT
  • Thursday 21:06GMT
  • Next Saturday 17:32GMT
  • Next Saturday 23:06GMT
  • Next Sunday 05:32GMT
  • Next Sunday 14:06GMT
  • Next Sunday 23:32GMT