Drowning in rubbish, Lima sends out the vultures with GoPros

Kitted out with video cameras and satellite trackers, 10 vultures have been set loose over the capital of Peru to draw attention to the megacity's overwhelming trash problem - though not necessarily to clean it up

Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures, or gallinazos. They circle in groups overhead and perch on the city's most emblematic buildings - the decrepit, colonial-era churches and crumbling 18^th-century piles in the city's downtown. In many ways, with their wrinkly heads and beady eyes, they remind Lima residents of the side of their city they would rather ignore: the neglect, poverty and filth.

But these carrion-eaters' natural affinity for dead and decaying things is being turned into a virtue. Environmental authorities are giving these much-maligned birds a PR makeover, kitting them out with GoPro video cameras and GPS trackers, and giving them a new mission in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping.