People In Nepal Used To Think Vultures Were Bad Luck. Not Anymore
Three boys walk through a community forest in the village of Pithauli in southern Nepal. One kicks a soccer ball, the other two carry a goat leg in each hand.
They're on their way to feed vulture chicks orphaned after a recent hailstorm.
Vulture "restaurants" have sprung up in Nepal over the past decade to offer safe food to the endangered birds, which lost more than 99 percent of their species population over about a decade. The restaurants house and raise rescued vulture babies — and also offer food to wild vultures.
Vulture restaurants are not new. The first ones emerged in Europe in the 1970s, when vulture populations there started dying out due to habitat loss and lack of food. Nepal launched its first in 2006, and the country now has seven — including
