What would happen if our sanitation workers didn’t pick up our garbage each week? We’d be overrun with garbage, right? In addition to causing foul odors, decaying garbage draws pests and spreads disease. A long time ago, someone figured out that it’s not healthy to live in filth and decay, so garbage collection and sanitation workers came to be.
Well . . . Vultures are nature’s sanitation workers.
Over 1 million animals are killed on American highways each year. Without vultures and other scavengers, all that roadkill would decay, draw pests, and spread disease. So, three cheers for vultures!
We are excited to add a Turkey Vulture to our group of education birds, so we can educate the public about the important role they play in our environment. Although vultures are more closely related to storks, they often are classified as raptors. However, unlike true raptors, turkey vultures are generally not hunters. They are opportunists. They eat almost exclusively dead and decaying animals. Powerful acids in their digestive systems kill harmful bacteria and viruses found in decaying carcasses, which spread disease. A vulture can even eat an animal that has died from botulism or anthrax, without getting sick itself.
Despite their size and wingspan, a vulture’s legs don’t have the strength to pick up and carry off the family dog, or a child, and their wings are made for soaring, not chasing. A vulture spends a large portion of its life in a group, circling and gliding on lazy currents of rising air. So it seemed appropriate to name the new vulture Ehr (pronounced like “air”).
Ehr came to us from Wabash, IN. In 2019, the Soarin’ Hawk rescue line got a call from a homeowner about a turkey vulture that had been down near their pond for a couple of weeks. They had been feeding it salmon, brisket and hamburger, so it was becoming bold, and starting to approach their house. The caller wanted him gone. Volunteers Bill and Sue brought him to our vet, who found no serious injuries – only a bruised shoulder. He was also very thin.
Over the next many months, Ehr ate well and put on weight but, even after many more months, was unable to fly. An evaluation showed him to be fairly calm and a good candidate for being trained as an education bird. He is currently in training and, as you might expect, his favorite meal is road kill.
