Most people view vultures as pests. They seem dirty to us. We see them eating roadkill and circling in the skies over some unknown carcass hiding in the woods. But, as if often the case with our first impressions of wildlife and nature, what you see is not always what you get.
Think about it this way. Vultures are nature’s clean-up crew. They get the roadkill off the streets quickly. They have incredibly strong stomach acids that can kill harmful bacteria found within that roadkill. Killing those bad bacteria protects the rest of us from potentially dangerous diseases. Those two things alone require another consideration of vultures, don’t you think?
Sara Gagné is back with a wonderful “Exploring Your Nature Neighborhood” blog post all about vultures in urban environments. There are a number of videos in here to watch closely. Then go out into your Nature Neighborhood and see if you can find vultures doing good deeds for us all.
If you’d like to read more about Sara’s research you can check that out on her website or her Instagram account.
**********
By Sara Gagné, Urban Ecologist, UNCC
Did you know that black vultures hunt? I didn’t until my former PhD student found that black vulture pellets, the indigestible stuff they regurgitate after a meal, contain the fur of red deer, a species farmed in North Carolina. Although they mostly eat carrion, or dead animals, black vultures will also prey upon the young of birds, turtles, and mammals, including livestock.
A black vulture nest in the Charlotte Metropolitan Region. Two fluffy chicks are in the background. Watch the video to see how the chicks develop and who visits them along the way.
That former student was Hannah Partridge, who is now a Community Action Manager with the National Audubon Society. Hannah’s research showed that vulture pellets contain another surprising element: plastic. Sixty percent of the pellets she collected at vulture roosts – where vultures spend the night in groups ‒ in the Charlotte metropolitan region contained plastic material. What’s more, the pellets collected at roosts surrounded by more grocery stores, restaurants, and other food providers were made up of more plastic by weight – in two cases, pellets were entirely composed of plastic material. Hannah’s results indicate that vultures in more urban environments eat more human garbage, and the plastic it’s wrapped in. What we don’t know is whether the ingestion of plastic has any negative health effects on the vultures themselves or on other creatures that live near roosts where pellets are expelled.
And there’s lots more we don’t know about vultures, especially in urban and suburban environments. During her studies, Hannah discovered that Charlotte’s vultures prefer roosts located in forest patches and near water, that what drives conflicts between people and black vultures, an increasing occurrence these days, is food availability, and that black vulture range expansion is driven by urbanization and the warming winters characteristic of our changing climate. But we don’t know much at all about vulture reproduction in urban and suburban areas – although Hannah did manage to record the growth to fledging of two remarkably cute black vulture chicks at a nest in an abandoned building (watch until the end for a glimpse of a coyote puppy), where and why vultures are more abundant, and how to manage increasing vulture populations most effectively.
I really didn’t know much about vultures before Hannah joined my lab, but now I find them to be incredibly fascinating creatures. You too can learn more about vultures in North Carolina by watching the Vulture Edventure video produced by the North Carolina Zoo and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. I especially like the explanation of vulture behavior provided by Elizabeth Folta, Curator of Education at the Zoo.
You can also help a little one learn about vultures using the Vulture Airplane Challenge activity. My 6-year-old listened intently as I read the preamble about how vultures, hawks, and eagles take advantage of rising air currents to soar high in the sky. We then made three paper airplanes of differing designs and decorated them to look like soaring birds. My son’s was an impressive bald eagle named Paper Tornado, whereas my first attempt was deemed by him “an example of a plane that you shouldn’t make”. The activity includes a test for longest flight distance and longest flying time among the planes. My son loved this part even though he was disappointed that Paper Tornado turned out to be the poorest flyer. My second try at an airplane, a more streamlined version he called Hawk Vulture, was the best of the lot, contrary to his expectations. The activity was a great way to introduce him to the scientific method of making predictions and testing them with standard methods. We spent the rest of the hour flying planes all over the house.
The planes my son and I made for the Vulture Airplane Challenge. From top: “an example of a plane that you shouldn’t make” according to my son, Paper Tornado the bald eagle, and Hawk Vulture, the winner of our distance trials.
For older kids and adults alike, try the Vulture Observations and Concrete Poem activity using your nature journal. This is a great opportunity to take a break from your everyday concerns and let your mind wander as you observe the peaceful spiraling of soaring birds. We’ll be practicing the skill of observation again next time when we explore the practice of forest bathing, the act of soaking up the atmosphere of a forest through the senses. Until then, don’t forget to look skyward to spot nature’s most underappreciated, yet majestic species: the black vulture and the turkey vulture of North Carolina.
**********
Thank you to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for partnering with the NC Science Trail.
