![]() We discuss all of the important ways we can recognize the importance of vultures and small things we can do to keep them safe. The first Saturday of September every year is International Vulture Awareness Day. In fact, the sense of smell of the turkey vulture is so keen and relied up, that the chemical compound that is the ‘dead smell’ ethyl mercaptan, has been added to odorless gas lines so that turkey vultures can help us find gas leaks. It was scientist Gabrielle Nevitt who began to take apart the idea that birds couldn’t smell. Even famed naturalist and ornithologist John Jay Audubon thought that turkey vultures found their food by sight. Turkey vultures have one of the best senses of smell in the bird world, and if that surprises you, take heart. Within mere minutes, the clear, cloudless quiet skies suddenly have curious turkey vultures sailing in from the northeastern ridges because they can smell our small cups of meat from over a mile away! Every time we walk up the hill to fly one of our birds of prey, which is frequently throughout our day, we have a little cup of their meat for training. ![]() ![]() When asked how often do we think about vultures, the answer is every hour, and not just because we work with two incredibly charismatic ones, Dallas the turkey vulture and Huxley the lesser yellow headed vulture. Their gut acid is ten times more acidic than other birds of prey, with a pH of near 0. That means that they can eat organic waste containing these pathogens, not get sick and not spread them, unlike other scavengers. So what makes vultures so important? These incredible birds are the end-user for an incredible array of deadly pathogens such as rabies, anthrax, cholera, botulism, and anthrax. Vultures in other regions have other threats as well, from electrocution, poisoning including intentional poisoning, habitat degradation, car strikes, body parts used for traditional medicines, among other reasons. From 1996 to 2006, healthcare costs increased an estimated $34 billion due to the decrease in vultures. With the reduction in vultures, there was an increase in other scavengers such as feral dogs and rats, which increased disease transmission such as rabies. And that is a problem for vultures and a big problem for humans.Ī famous published study researched the effects of the 98% drop in Asian vultures due to the veterinary drug diclofenac that was used on cattle. For reasons perhaps that are due to their visual appearance, perhaps in part because of their ecological niche, and likely in many ways we can also blame sensationalized cultural representations and mythologies surrounding them, vultures have been villainized for being unclean for far too long. They are not consideredĬharismatic megafauna, a term bestowed on our beloved elephants, rhinos, pandas, and other mammalian cohabitants with widespread popular appeal. That’s right, our New World vultures, the condors, the turkey and black vultures, yellow headed and king vultures are actually more closely related to storks than the Old World vultures that so are so iconic on the pages of magazines bickering and hissing at each other amid a tussle of jackals and hyenas.īut both sets are in desperate need of your love, respect, and your attention. ![]() Here’s another concept that might knock your socks off: vultures in Africa and Asia are not related to the ones we have here in North and South America. In fact, there is a limit to what a sufficiently sated vulture will feed on, and they do prefer the fresher carcasses. ![]() Despite what you might have been told, they do not particularly love the smellier, rottier carcasses. Obligate scavengers, meaning that while some birds are opportunistic scavengers (cough cough, here’s looking at you, bald eagles), vultures do not hunt at all and can only scavenge meat. ![]()
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