A new film by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Center for Conservation Media tells the story of a wildlife photographer who travels to India to document the rarest stork on Earth, but soon discovers a conservation hero and her inspiring efforts to rally a community to save this stork. Hargila documents the Greater Adjutant, a huge scavenging stork that was once widely distributed across India and Southeast Asia but is now mostly confined to a last stronghold in Assam. Greater Adjutants are called “hargila” in the Assamese language, which literally translates as “bone swallower.” Hargila are an endangered species with a rapidly declining population of around 1,200 individuals and face threats from direct human persecution, habitat destruction, pollution and degradation of wetlands. Through the efforts of a remarkable conservation leader, Dr. Purnima Devi Barman, and the movement she has inspired, the birds are now protected, celebrated and increasing their numbers locally. Despite this success and the momentum to conserve the species, the Greater Adjutant’s existence remains precarious.