Global peatland destruction is releasing vast amounts of stored carbon

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the past, the bearded vulture was widely distributed across
various mountain ranges in Africa, Europe and Asia. In Europe,
their habitat once span the southern mountain ranges of the continent,
from western Spain through the Alps to the Balkans. However,
today their habitat in Europe is limited to small areas
in the Pyrenees, Sierra Nevada and Spain and the Alps.

(00:23):
Small populations of bearded vultures also exist on the Mediterranean
islands of Corsica and Crete. Occasionally they are spotted in
Western Europe, including the UK, those sightings are extremely rare.
The bearded vulture is also known as the Lammergeier, which
means lamb vulture in German, due to its reputation for

(00:43):
preying on sheep. They are scavengers that primarily target medium
sized hoofed animals like sheep, goats, and ibex. However, meat
is not their preferred food. Bearded vultures are the only
bird species in the world that primarily feed on bones,
which make up eighty five to ninety percent of their diet.
Their large, powerful talons are well adapted to breaking bones

(01:05):
and extracting the nutritious marrow inside. They also have highly
acidic stomachs capable of digesting bones. When bones are too
large to swallow, bearded vultures fly high into the air
and drop them onto rocky surfaces to shatter them into smaller,
more manageable pieces. This behavior has earned them the name
quebranta huesos in Spanish, which means bone breaker.