In a study near Bariloche, Argentina, eight condors flapped for only 1.3 percent of their recorded flight time. Flapping was estimated to use 21 percent of the daily flight energy, because 3.3 minutes of takeoff flapping costs as much as 50 minutes of soaring. More than three quarters of all the flapping the condors did was linked to takeoffs, when a heavy bird must get off the ground.

Stable isotopes act as an identifier of the type of food a scavenger eats, which let scientists compare old museum feathers with modern ones. Researchers tracked down 24 condor specimens in museums around the world. They compared isotopes in their feathers with those from 53 living condors.

Scientists studied what Patagonia’s vultures eat. They found that Andean condors and black vultures eat mostly the same food: carcasses of farm animals.

Outside the nesting season, Andean condors often gather in groups to rest and sleep on rocky cliffs. In Patagonia, as many as 196 Andean condors have been counted together at a communal roost.

The lead levels in 152 feathers from 15 communal roosts across about 1,500 kilometers of Patagonia were generally low, but some birds had levels several times the average. Lead in condor feathers matched a mix of two kinds of ammunition, one used for big game and another for hare hunting, say the scientists who traced its isotopes. Researchers in Argentina measured high lead in 76 wild condors. Captive-bred birds that had not met lead had much lower levels.

Scientists counting condors in Colombia used 207 observers at 84 simultaneous watching points; it was the first Andean condor count for that country. As of November 2026, 63 condors were recorded at the same moment across all the watching points in that first count. As of November 2026, scientists estimated 175 to 269 Andean condors in Colombia, using a statistical method called an N-mixture model.

Andean condors were declared extinct in Venezuela in the late 1960s, and only 30 to 60 birds were thought to survive in Colombia in the 1980s. The 1989 Colombian reintroduction began with five male Andean condor chicks raised under the same method as California condors, and a plan to return condors to their native Colombian home.

Nobody knows how long wild condors really live; the best estimate is about 50 years.

Words to know

• takeoffs: leaving the ground
• ammunition: bullets and shot
• observers: people watching
• estimated: worked out
• reintroduction: return to wild