“They’re ugly”.
“They’re disgusting”.
“They kill livestock and pets, so I have to shoot them. I don’t care if it’s illegal”.
“Vultures are only good if they’re dead”.
People have said all of these things to me. None of these statements are true – in fact, the truth is quite the opposite of all of these beliefs. But myths about, and revulsion towards, vultures are pervasive across the world. Vultures are my personal favorite bird because of how important and intelligent they are, and I hope that by reading this article, you, too, will come to appreciate and maybe even love vultures.
Let’s go through these myths, and talk about what the truth actually is!
Myth: Vultures are ugly.
Fact: Vultures are beautiful and colorful!
Anyone who says this just hasn’t met a vulture! Let me introduce you to the King Vulture, one of the most colorful and beautiful birds in the world! I don’t know how anyone could say this bird is ugly!
Myth: Vultures are disgusting.
Fact: Vultures are actually some of the most versatile and intelligent birds on the planet.
People who claim that vultures are “disgusting” often think of them as eating carrion and being covered in smelly roadkill and there isn’t much more to them, and they would rather learn about some of the more “attractive” or “regal” birds such as owls or falcons.
But vultures are actually some of the most unique and interesting birds to talk about! Here are some amazing vulture facts:
The vulture with the largest wingspan is the Andean Condor – its wingspan is almost 11 feet in length!
Believe it or not, these two groups are not closely related, and probably evolved due to convergent evolution – when two similar animals evolve independently in different places to fill the same ecological niche. New World vultures are more closely related to storks than they are to Old World vultures!
Vultures are highly intelligent, and one species of vulture, the Egyptian Vulture, even uses tools! Turkey Vultures have passed some of the same intelligence tests as ravens. Both Turkey and Black Vultures can be trained in education programs to perform complicated displays, and unlike other birds of prey, they have facial recognition and will bond with trainers.
Egyptian Vultures, however, are the most intelligent vultures because they use tools. They have been documented using rocks to break open ostrich eggs. Critterfacts has a page on the Egyptian Vulture if you’d like to learn more, and you can visit it here!
Myth: Vultures kill livestock and pets, and should be shot and killed to protect domesticated animals.
Fact: Vultures rarely, if ever, attack healthy livestock or pets.
Vultures killing livestock and pets is a very unfortunate myth that results in the unnecessary death of too many birds every year. The truth is that vultures couldn’t kill a healthy animal if they wanted to – their feet are not designed for killing.
Raptors such as hawks and eagles have feet designed for killing and carrying prey, whereas vultures do not, because vultures primarily feed on carrion and do not need to kill animals for food. Vulture feet are actually quite weak.
In fact, vulture feet are so weak that they cannot even carry food back to their chicks – they have to eat the food, fly back to the nest, and regurgitate it for the chicks instead!
People will sometimes find vultures eating a dead livestock animal and will blame the vultures for its death – but the vast majority of the time, the animal either died of natural causes or was killed by a more aggressive predator, such as a coyote, and the vultures are taking advantage of the leftovers.
In addition, in the United States, all vultures are protected by federal law (the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918), and it is a federal offense to kill them. It is because of this law, and our protections over our vultures, that in North America, we do not have as much of a problem with disease:
Myth: Vultures are only good if they’re dead.
Fact: Vultures are essential to human health.
This is the saddest of the statements that I hear, because of the serious health repercussions of killing vultures. Vultures are essential to health around the world because they are a major contributor to preventing the spread of disease.
Most people are aware that vultures eat carrion, or “dead things/roadkill”, and know that this by itself is beneficial because then we do not have to see or smell the carrion. But what most people do not realize is that by eating carrion, vultures are literally saving your life.
Birds, however, cannot carry any of these diseases – and in addition, vultures’ stomachs are ten times more acidic than human stomachs. This extra acidity means that the disease cannot survive in their digestive system, and when the vulture poops, the diseases cannot spread via vulture excrement because they are dead.
In summary, what this means is that if vultures eat a carcass before a mammalian scavenger does (such as rodents, raccoons, etc.), that the disease is stopped in its tracks and cannot spread. This study in Conservation Biology showed that without vultures, mammalian contact with carcasses increased 3-fold, and mammals spent 3 times as much time at carcasses as well – dangerously increasing the chance of disease spread. Vultures literally are saving lives!
When the livestock died, vultures would eat the carcasses – and diclofenac turned out to cause kidney failure in vultures. Between 1992 and 2007, all three of India’s vulture species had declined by 97-99.9% in population. By 2007, the white-rumped vulture had declined from a population of 80 million to only a few thousand birds.
The consequences of the vulture decline were brutal. Because vultures were not eating animal carcasses, the carcasses would rot and contaminate drinking water. Feral dog and rat populations grew because more food was available to them – and because rats and dogs are mammals, carcasses infected with diseases – most importantly, rabies – spread the disease to the feral rats and dogs.
There were almost 40 million additional dog bites between 1992 and 2006 in India, and the increase in dog bites led to an additional 47,300 human rabies deaths during this time. You can read the full study here.
Vultures literally save lives and protect humans from disease.
These sobering statistics are only for rabies incidence in India. They do not include the rest of the world, nor do they include any other diseases that vultures protect us from.
There are 23 species of vultures in the world. Twelve of them are endangered or critically endangered. An additional 4 are threatened or could become endangered soon. Only 7 of the world’s vulture species are not in danger of population decline or extinction.
The vulture population crisis is not just a conservation concern – it is a human health crisis. If vultures are threatened, humans are threatened. That is why vulture conservation work, and education dispelling myths about vultures, is critically important.
Vultures of the United States
I hope that this article has interested you in learning more about vultures, especially your local vultures! If you’re in the United States, there are three species of vultures that you may see: Turkey Vultures, Black Vultures, and California Condors.
Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures have healthy populations and are not of conservation concern. But California Condors are critically endangered, and as of 2018 only 488 remained in the wild.
Turkey Vultures can be identified by their red head, and in-flight, by their translucent wings:
Black vultures have black heads, and only the tips of their wings (the primary feathers) are translucent in flight. You can see this shown on the images below:
So now that you are enthusiastic about vultures and understand how important and endangered they are, what can you do to help them? You can educate! Education is the key to solving all conservation matters. You can tell your friends and family about how cool vultures are, and why they are important.
You can share this article or others like it. If you hear somebody saying that we don’t need vultures, you can tell them all about how amazing vultures are and how important they are to human health. Please share this information and help protect vultures around the world!
