Nepal’s endangered vultures take flight for new sport
| FEATURE |
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POKHARA — At a lakeside resort in the mountains of western Nepal, the paragliding season is in full swing, and local champion Kevin is training to get back to full fitness.
His unerring ability to find the thermals that allow paragliders to defy gravity, soaring through the air with vertigo-inducing speed, have made Kevin a minor celebrity in the world of this exhilarating sport.
Kevin, a four-year-old bird who was rescued as a chick after falling out of the nest, is the world’s first paragliding vulture.
His owner is Scott Mason, a 38-year-old Londoner with a lifelong passion for bird conservation who travelled to Nepal nine years ago and — almost by accident — invented the new extreme sport of parahawking.
The birds fly with the paraglider, guiding the pilot to the thermals that they have a natural instinct for finding. They are then rewarded with meat, and are trained to land on a passenger’s gloved hand when called..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101112com7.html
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