In honor of International Vulture Awareness Day, we want to pay homage to these mysterious, fascinating, and often misunderstood animals, who are undeniably crucial to the ecosystems in which they reside.
As obligate scavengers, vultures are nature’s cleanup crew. As such, they are equipped with incredible adaptations that allow them to safely consume decaying animals. Vultures are easily recognized by their bald heads and necks, which helps prevent their feathers from getting dirty or contaminated while feeding on carcasses and allows them to stay cool in hot climates. They lack a syrinx, or vocal organ, so they cannot sing like many other birds, but they can make other sounds to communicate with others like grunts, screeches, and hisses. Many vulture species also have acute senses of smell and sight, which allow them to locate food from miles away.
As they rely almost entirely on dead animals for food, their stomach is highly acidic, with a pH near zero. This high acidity enables them to neutralize deadly pathogens like anthrax, cholera, and botulism, which can thrive in decaying carcasses. For this reason, vultures are vital for helping prevent disease transmission and outbreaks. They can even digest tough materials like bones and hides, which other scavengers often leave behind.
Vultures are social birds, and often travel, feed, and roost in groups. Flocks of vultures have unique names, including a “venue,” “committee,” or “volt” when on the ground, a “wake” when feeding, and a “kettle” when in flight. Social hierarchy within flocks is often determined by physical factors like their bill strength and body size. Vultures are also highly efficient fliers that cover large distances, often coasting on rising columns of warm air, or thermals, to gain altitude with minimal energy expenditure. By using these thermals, they can soar for long distances without continuous flapping. Some studies have revealed that vultures can travel as much as 60-90 miles per day.
Vultures Around the World are Threatened with Extinction
Of the 23 recognized vulture species worldwide, 14 are sadly globally threatened with extinction. According to a 2016 assessment done by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN- the most comprehensive database on the global extinction risk status of all animal, fungi, and plant species in the world), vultures are one of the most endangered groups of birds in the world; nine vulture species are Critically Endangered, three are Endangered, four are Near Threatened, and six are of Least Concern.
Some populations, like those in South Asia, have plummeted by as much as 99.9%. Other species in Africa have experienced population declines by as much as 80-97% over the last 50 years. The main threats vultures face in the wild include poisoning (accidental or intentional, e.g. from lead bullets or drugs given to livestock that are toxic to vultures when consumed), habitat loss, electrocution, hunting, and collisions with wind turbines or power lines.
Captive Breeding Vultures at Zoos is not Recommended by Conservation Experts
Despite many vultures mating for life in the wild and staying with their young for up to two years, they are artificially managed, matched, and transferred between zoos around the world through breeding programs to maintain captive populations for human entertainment. This is also despite the IUCN not recommending captive breeding at zoos as a necessary conservation action for many vulture species. Instead, all the recommended conservation actions to combat the threats these animals face in their natural habitats would need to occur within their natural range to effectively improve their conservation status in the wild, including protecting resources like water and land, establishing reforestation programs, quantifying population size and trends, and planning species recovery and action plans.
To learn more about vultures in captivity, read our newest undercover zoo investigation at the Honolulu Zoo, where we observed king vultures and a vast collection of other birds tragically denied their most basic behavior: flight.
Dear Reader,