What do you picture when I say the word vulture?

Giant bald-faced birds with crooked necks, blood-stained feathers, and huge, ripping, tearing beaks?

Is that what you were picturing?

All a magnificent bird spreading its three-meter wingspan in the sun, an elegant, curious, gentle giant of the sky.

I'm Sasha Dinch, I'm the UN's ambassador for migratory species, and I love vultures.

Whatever you think of them, you might not know just how important they are,

to the ecosystems they live in, to us humans, to the whole planet.

And you might not know that nearly everywhere vultures exist.

Right now, they're in trouble.

Numbers have plummeted in the last few decades,

with declines of 80, 90 and even 99% in places.

What's killing them is a complex picture with no easy solutions.

I'll be honest, I was fairly indifferent to vultures myself, until I flew alongside them.

I am also a paraglider pilot. In fact, one of the conservation projects I'm best known for

was back in 2016 when I flew a paramotor alongside Buick Swans on their migration route from Russia

to the UK. The media at the time started calling me the human swan,

and it's a name that kind of stuck.

But the first time I flew with vultures, I was blown away.

Now I never approached birds in the air,

but some birds like the vultures will often come and fly right alongside you,

and they are your best friends in the air, finding thermals at a distance that are invisible to the human eye,

effortlessly navigating those complex air currents far better than even the best human pilot.

...