Circling silently on rising columns of air, two Andean condors glide above a narrow canyon in Colombia’s Chingaza National Park looking for a deer or tapir carcass below. At the edge of a cliff on this glittering June day, soldiers from an anti-guerrilla mountain battalion whoop and cheer. “We never used to see these magnificent creatures,” says one soldier. “Thank God, they’re here again.” Educational initiatives stressing bird conservation and an ambitious breeding initiative coordinated by the San Diego Zoo in the United States have brought the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus), the world’s largest raptor, back from the brink of extinction here. From fewer than 10 individuals in the mid-1980s, Colombia now has more than 130 Andean condors flying in their native habitat... [Log in to read more]