A research has shown that storks that are feeding on rubbish dumps, instead of migrating have more chances to survive the winter. An international team said that the bird is one of the growing numbers of migratory species that have brought chances in their behavior because of human influences.

All white storks in Europe used to migrate south for the winter until recently, but now a large number of them have started flying shorter distances for feeding on dumps. The bird breeds from Europe to north-west Africa and western Asia.

Traditionally, European White storks used to fly south for spending the winter in Africa but in recent years an increasing number have preferred staying closer to home, after getting lured by the food discarded at landfill sites.

A team headed by Dr Andrea Flack of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany used GPS devices for studying the migratory habits of 70 young storks from eight different nations at the time of their first migration.

Published in Science Advances, the study tracked birds hatched in Armenia, Spain, Germany, Tunisia, Greece, Poland, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

It discovered that the storks from Poland, Russia and Greece even today follow the traditional migratory route of flying south till South Africa.

But, Spain, Tunisia and Germany birds stay around north of the Sahara; Armenia birds covered just a few miles; and, astonishingly, Uzbekistan birds stayed in their home country.

According to the scientists, most of the birds that remained in north of the Sahara stayed alive by feeding on rubbish dumps, which enabled them get food without the additional energy expenditure of flying long-distance.

Whereas, the birds staying in Uzbekistan possibly got food from fish farms, holding back their normal migratory habit of flying to Afghanistan or Pakistan in winter.