storks

Andrea Flack of the Max Planck Institute found that birds following traditional migration routes were more likely to die than German storks that flew only as far as northern Morocco, and spent the winter there on rubbish dumps.

Landfill sites on the Iberian Peninsula have long attracted local white storks, but all of the Spanish birds tagged in the study flew across the Sahara Desert to the western Sahel.

Researchers in Germany used miniature GPS tags to track the migrations of 70 white storks from different sites across Europe and Asia during the first five months of their lives.

The Russian, Greek and Polish storks flew as far as South Africa, while those from Spain, Tunisia and Germany flew only as far as the Sahel.

The scientists tracked white storks from different colonies in Europe and Africa.

White storks feed on locusts and other insects that can become pests if their numbers get out of hand.

Writing in the journal, the scientists describe how the storks from Germany were clearly affected by the presence of waste sites, with four out of six birds that survived for at least five months overwintering on rubbish dumps in northern Morocco, instead