Buzzards Are Grounded by Gorging on Junk

A Colombian environmentalist is working to save buzzards at a garbage dump that got so fat gorging on trash that they couldn’t fly.

A new, more sanitary disposal center outside the Caribbean city of Santa Marta is burying waste within 15 minutes -- hardly giving the 7,000 hungry buzzards time for a light snack, Alex Rodriguez said.

Many of the birds are so fat they are unable to fly to look for carrion, he said. Rodriguez has asked authorities to relocate the buzzards to a place where they can practice flying and renew their instinctive appetite for animal corpses.