In Spine-Chilling Video, Vulture Lands Right On Paraglider's Head

Paragliding offers humans an experience closest to flying like birds. An old video has recently resurfaced, depicting a black vulture hitching a ride with a paraglider. The footage captures the paraglider soaring over Serra Aratanha Pacatuba in Brazil when the vulture lands on his helmet. The video, reposted on Instagram, clarifies that this was not a chance encounter. In fact, Vital had trained the vulture to fly alongside him.

The caption explained, “While this paraglider was flying over a Brazilian forest, a vulture joined him, landing on his helmet before resuming his flight alongside him. Of course, the Urufly is a vulture trained to do so, rescued when he was still a baby, the owner has always accustomed him to fly alongside him during his paragliding outings.” Training vultures to fly with paragliders is also known as parahawking.

Commenting on this video an Instagram user wrote, “Now that’s the definition of remaining calm. I was attacked by a wild geese and I was not calm at all.” Another person wrote, “Bro just wanted to glide with no effort.”

People also noticed that when the vulture landed on Vital’s helmet, its claw was very close to his eye which may have injured Vital. Making this observation, an Instagram user wrote, “You’re so lucky you were wearing the glasses or you would have lost your eye.”

The second part of this video shows the black vulture getting away from Vital’s head and landing on his shoes instead for the rest of the flight. This video has received over 5 million likes.

An X user explained why black vultures are used in parahawking and wrote, “So, this is a Black Vulture. Unlike other birds of prey they don’t have very strong feet or sharp talons (I’ve had one sit on my shoulder while wearing a shirt!) The thing around the bird’s ankle isn’t a tag, it’s a leather strap called a “jess.” These are traditionally used by falconers to hold or tether a bird. Vultures are highly intelligent and therefore super easy to train (if you know what you are doing.) My guess on this situation is this bird was orphaned or taken as a chick and trained by the guy flying with it. It should go without saying that vultures are wild animals and make terrible pets. It’s also illegal to have one in your possession unless you have a permit. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!”