The Condor

In the Andes, condors glide for hours on rising air currents, using their sharp vision and sense of smell to find carcasses across huge distances. Studies of scavenger communities show that condors act as top scavengers, arriving early and dominating access to large carcasses, which accelerates nutrient cycling and limits the time pathogens have to spread from dead animals into soil and water. The condor shows that death is not just an ending, but part of a cycle. By consuming carcasses, it transforms death into life, returning nutrients to the ecosystem and preventing the spread of disease.

Where mass extinction beds show what happens when death overwhelms a system, the condor shows what happens when death is integrated into it. Every carcass it strips is one step in a cycle that keeps energy moving. Together with memento mori artworks, this bird becomes a living reminder that acknowledging death can be a way of caring for life, not turning away from it. The condor represents death as part of life's maintenance. It shows that death is not just an ending, but a necessary part of the cycle that sustains life.