![]() India has also been breeding captive vultures to shore up wild populations, and officials monitor areas around breeding stations for diclofenac. Bangladesh also established vulture safe zones and community-based vulture feeding stations and, as a result, the local population decline has stopped. ( How Kenya is fighting vulture poisoning.)īoth India and Bangladesh banned the veterinary use of diclofenac in 20, respectively. The loss of the vultures has affected the country’s human population, too, as cattle were left to rot-resulting in stench and an increase in rabies as feral dogs consume the infected carrion instead and spread the disease. The medicine causes fatal kidney failure in vultures that eat the carcasses of treated cows. In India, vulture populations have fallen more than 99 percent since the 1990s due to the use of a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac. India and Bangladesh are home to white-rumped, slender-billed, and red-headed vultures, all critically endangered. These include the red-headed or Podnicherry vulture and the California condor. ![]() Griffon vultures, for example, are of least concern but six other species listed are critically endangered-two steps from extinction. The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species assessments of vulture populations run the gamut. Threats and conservationĭespite their value to human and planetary health, vultures are among the most endangered birds in the world. The young are born blind and helpless and will develop their wings between nine to 10 weeks and l eave the nest at 60 to 80 days. Vultures usually produce two eggs that both parents incubate for 28 to 40 days on flat ground in a sheltered area like a cave or even an abandoned building. Then, birds couple off and fly in tandem, with one bird closely following the other in the air. Many vultures are monogamous, returning to the same partner every breeding season.įor turkey vultures, courtship starts when several individuals gather in a circle to perform a hopping dance. New World vultures have no syrinx-a bird’s voice box-so they vocalize in hisses or grunts. Only Old World vultures can make alarm and other calls. And though they have few predators, they practice defensive vomiting when they feel threatened to scare away a would-be attacker. They defecate on their legs to keep cool, a behavior called urohidrosis. Vultures use their own body fluids for self-care. ( Learn about the odd science of shooing vultures away.) Behavior and bird calls Some species, like the turkey vulture of the Americas, never hunt or kill for food while others may do so occasionally. Not only does it enable them to eat the fragments but it helps them to get to the delicious, nutritious marrow. Bearded vultures favor the bones of animals like goats and other small ungulates, which they drop from the sky onto rocks. Egyptian vultures are tool users, employing rocks to break tough ostrich eggs. The palm-nut vulture of coastal central Africa, primarily eats the fruits of raffia and oil palms. Not all vultures dine on the dead, however. (Baldness may also play a role in thermoregulation for these animals who soar from hot landscapes into chilly heights quickly.) ![]() Some, like South America’s colorful king vulture, have bald heads and necks, which are more hygienic than feathers when you’re head-deep in carcass. They also have hardcore stomach acid that destroys even the most dangerous bacteria and helps them extract nutrients from their food. They’re thought to have strong immunity to pathogens that would sicken or kill other animals. Vultures have adaptations that allow them to consume rotten food in a way that other animals can’t. ( Learn more about vultures with your kids.) By hoovering up the remains of decaying bodies, they prevent stench, significantly curtail carbon emissions, and eliminate bacteria such as botulism and plague that can be released during decomposition. Their cleaning service is invaluable to humans. Most vultures are scavengers, feeding primarily on carrion. An example of convergent evolution, these groups evolved independently and are not closely related. The 23 species are divided into New World vultures from the Americas and Old World vultures from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Vultures are large, social raptors that live on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.
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