Some Interesting Information About The Turkey Vulture
by Bill Kohlmoos,
Cofounder and Former President of The Turkey Vulture Society
When I ask for a description of the California Condor what does a person tell me? Big, graceful, beautiful flyer - a bird to be respected. We have spent many millions of dollars studying this bird and protecting it from extinction.
When I ask for a description of the Turkey Vulture, what does a person say? Usually they reply that the vulture is not nearly so glamorous. However, they are both vultures, look the same, act the same, and do the same. And they are closely related cousins.
In the United States there are three different vultures: the California Condor found mostly in Southern California; the Black Vulture found in the east and deep south, and almost never in the west; and the Turkey Vulture which ranges from Canada to the tip of Cape Horn and from the West Coast to the East Coast.
The Turkey Vulture (and also the California Condor) are classified by the Ornithological Union in the same order as storks and flamingos (Ciconiiformes). The basis for this classification includes genetic, anatomical, and behavioral. An interesting fact - they both eat meat, the same as human beings do, and also up to 50% of their diet consists of vegetation
The Turkey Vulture is lacking strength in its tiny grasping claw and does not and cannot kill. Also, the Turkey Vulture's beak has neither the shape nor strength to tear into a fresh carcass.
The Black Vulture is often aggressive, can kill small animals, and will even attack horses, cows, and people. Raptors, including hawks and eagles, have a much larger and stronger grasping claw. Sometimes the Turkey Vulture takes the blame for the Black Vulture's actions.
The Turkey Vulture's scientific name, Cathartes aura, means "pacifier" or "cleanser." The Cherokee Nation of the U.S. gave the bird the honorific "peace eagle," because, unlike the eagle which it resembles from a distance, the Turkey Vulture does not kill.
Turkey Vultures are a daytime bird and are not accustomed to flying at night. They have very keen senses of sight, smell and hearing. They find food by sight and also by an extremely acute sense of smell which is capable of detecting parts per trillion and discerning from which direction they came.
The Turkey Vulture's digestive system has the unique ability to kill any virus and bacteria in the food the bird eats. His diet includes as much as 50% vegetative matter according to a recent doctoral study. The vulture's droppings and dry pellets (bolus) are clean and do not carry disease. This was proven by the United States Department of Agriculture in tests performed during a hog cholera epidemic in the deep south.
The pellets, which are smaller than a chicken egg, are regurgitated. They consist of dried hair, bone material, and vegetation, and have no odor. Turkey Vultures eat carrion when available, and also eat various plant foods, including grass, leaves, pumpkin, and seeds. A recent study of almost 400 pellets collected in the Castro Valley and Livermore areas in California showed that plant material was the single most common ingredient of the Turkey Vulture's diet. It occurred to some amount in more than 80% of the pellets examined and represented a mean of 25% of the total dried weight. The material consisted primarily of grass and leaves. Animal food items in the pellets included the: shrew, mole, squirrel, gopher, mouse, rat, rabbit, bird, reptile, insect, muskrat, opossum, racoon, skunk, badger, and coyote. If not consumed and sterilized by the TV's , these carcasses would have rotted on the ground and could have spread disease.
The Turkey Vulture has somehow acquired a false reputation for vomiting. Actually, the Turkey Vulture very seldom regurgitates. However, if it is cornered by a person who gets too close and is threatening, the vulture may roll over and play dead, or it may project vomit in a defensive manner and this has an offensive odor. Skunks are similar in this defensive maneuver.
The Turkey Vulture is found all across the entire United States and into Canada. Some, in the warmer areas, are year-round residents, but many migrate to Central and South America for the winter. Of those that migrate, many will head south with the Autumnal Equinox and return in the spring on the Vernal Equinox, quite often on the exact day. On one occasion in the spring, a returning roost of 75 birds was observed flying for two days into a strong storm with rain, snow, and 40 mph head-winds. They arrived at their roost on the exact day of the Vernal Equinox.
How many people can identify a Turkey Vulture flying at altitude and some distance away? Many people don't recognize or even see the Turkey Vulture. Vultures are found in the middle of many cities, such as Miami, Pensacola, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, and Reno. And in the country they are found from coast to coast and from Canada to South America.
So, the Turkey Vultures are out there. They are interesting. And they're fun to watch. The Turkey Vulture is THE MOST GRACEFUL SOARING BIRD IN THE WORLD. He follows the thermals and updrafts with an instinct admired by experienced glider pilots. He can "feel" the air as he plays updrafts and minor variations with his wing-tip fingers, much as a pianist plays classical music on a Steinway. They're easy to identify because when soaring they hold their wings in a dihedral or "V" shape and they seldom flap. Most other large birds hold their wings straight out and flap frequently.
The Turkey Vulture is family oriented. A roost is a group of vultures living together and sleeping at night in a tall tree. This is different from a nest where a mating pair will go off by themselves and lay two eggs and raise their young. Vultures do not build a nest as such, but simply lay two eggs on the bare ground. Nests are located on a rock ledge on the face of a cliff, in a cave, a hollow tree, or even in an abandoned shed or barn.
Some roosts are known to be 100 years or more old. That is, the same family of vultures has used the same tree or trees for home for many generations. They may move for the season (for some unknown reason) to a different tree in the immediate neighborhood. The following year they may adopt the new tree, or they may decide to go back to the original tree.
Individual birds will live in the same communal roost most of their life, and will usually sleep in the same roost in the same tree on their selected branch every night. However, some vultures may wander up to 200 miles away, visiting different roosts each night, and then return to their home roost a week or two later.
In a roost the birds have a pecking order and use body language and eye contact in a manner which is clearly comprehensible to people who have learned to observe them.
Many of the roosts are located near human habitation. There can be the same kind of trees a half mile away in a field, but for their home the birds will pick a tree near people. They seem to like the warmth of human company.
Turkey Vultures live and work together, in cooperation and friendliness. They communicate with friends and neighbors when they find something to eat. They let the others know where the food is. And when there is a big feast they communicate with neighboring flocks in distant roosts. Also, when they find food they will go to the California Condors and lead them to it. One roost was observed when they had a dead cow in their neighborhood. They somehow contacted a roost of 100 vultures about 30 miles away to come join them. Several days later, before they finished their feast, two more cows died. Within a day the vultures had contacted another roost to join them. At night all the birds visited together in the same or neighboring trees. There were now three different roosts living together. When the cows had been cleaned up the several visiting roosts went home.
Now, if there had only been a dead jack rabbit, there would have been no neighboring roost joining our home roost. Somehow, our TV's communicated that they had a big one, so come and join us.
The Turkey Vulture is a clean bird. Lengthy observations of the vultures in a roost have shown that each bird spends from two to three hours a day preening itself. Also, they will bathe in water whenever they can. Entire flocks of 75 birds have been observed going into a pond of water for a bath. They preen their feathers, submerse, shake, and scrub for half an hour. Then they walk up on the bank and hold their wings out to the sun to dry. When ready, they soar off into the sky and play an exuberant game of tag, because they feel so good.
They enjoy playing games. Almost every evening when they return to the roost there will be about half an hour of follow-the-leader, tag, and speed soaring, if the winds are favorable. On the speed soaring they will come down to the level of the roost and then soar straight up into the sky until they can no longer be seen. In five minutes they return and do it again.
One the our observers in Indiana watched three separate roosts by a lake one calm, windless evening. Each roost of about one hundred birds was settled in for the night. It was approaching dusk. Suddenly a strong breeze from a passing thunderstorm hit the area and that was a signal for all three hundred birds, one hundred in each of the three roosts, to rise straight up in the air in spirals like three distinct and separate whirlwinds. When they were almost out of sight they began diving and chasing each other in follow-the-leader. After 45 minutes, as the evening was turning darker, they all returned to their roosts and settled in. They had definitely been playing, just for the fun of it.
In the wild or open country a Turkey Vulture will sometimes become attached to a person. A lady in Southern California wrote that she and her husband would drive their car five miles from town and take a daily walk in the country with their dog. A Turkey Vulture would join them, soaring above and watching them. And then one day at home she broke a leg and the walks were not possible for a while. One day she was in her back yard on crutches and there was her Turkey Vulture sitting on the fence, waiting to say hello. He had found her in a town of 12,000 people!
Some people react to an act like this as frightful, thinking that the vulture is looking for a potential meal. Not so. They're not that dumb. No, this was an act of friendliness and association, and we have had dozens of such incidents reported to us.
In another case it was reported by a person who had studied Turkey Vultures for many years that one would wait every morning for his son, a young school boy, to come out of his house. The vulture would follow the boy several blocks to the school bus stop and then wait on top of a telephone pole until the boy got on the bus. In the afternoon the bird would be back on the pole waiting for the boy's return, and then follow him home.
We have received many reports about the intelligence of the Turkey Vulture. One lady wrote us that she has built a small wooden tower-like feeder in her back yard and puts out food for her friends each day. One day she noticed that after eating their breakfast, the vultures had gone down to the lawn in her yard and six of them were in a circle around a soccer-size ball left on the lawn by her grandchildren. The vultures were hitting the ball back and forth to each other by butting it with their head and beak. Each day thereafter they played this game. And although there were four balls of different colors, they always picked the orange one.
When a Turkey Vulture is injured and taken into rehab he will become emotionally attached to his handler and follow him around and watch him, much like a pet dog. They love to bring an object to a person and then play tug-of-war.
An experienced caretaker at a nature park in Florida wrote that she worked with a Turkey Vulture which had lost a wing and a toe. She said that in two months she taught the vulture more than she had been able to teach a red-tailed hawk in eight months. This person contacted a caretaker at another park in Florida and learned that she had exactly the same experience in training vultures and hawks. She wrote, "We both find the vultures to be gentle, inquisitive, and very intelligent."
The turkey vulture is easy to recognize when it's flying low or is on the ground and the bald red head is clearly visible. But when it's soaring at a high altitude a positive identification may be difficult. Another distinguishing feature is the vulture's ability to soar for hours with very little movement of the wings. The wings are held in a dihedral. When viewed from the front the wings are in a V-shape, as shown in the following sketches:
The Turkey Vulture Society is a new approach to the study of this mysterious and unique master of soaring in the blue skies above. The Society was organized in 1994 for an in-depth study of the Turkey Vulture and for distribution of new information to interested individuals and educators. Also we are building a central library for books, papers, and reports on the Turkey Vulture, where all written material can be found in one location.
One of our more important studies concerns the proven ability of the vulture's digestive system to kill bacteria or virus in infected meat. The ability to disinfect rodent carcasses carrying Hantavirus will be tested. This work could be of great significance to human medical research. There may also be vital information to be discovered for use in the event of biological warfare, acts of terrorism, or world wide epidemics.
Ornithologists and scientists throughout the United States have been helping our studies. Support has been received from the Fish & Game Departments of several western states. The Nevada Division of Wildlife is cooperating with the Society in its work. The U.S. National Biological Service carries our Web Site for references to us from throughout the world.
