“Watching a soaring turkey vulture is like meditating. Gently rocking with the breeze, wings fixed in a shallow dihedral, a vulture’s flight looks peaceful and elegant, almost contemplative. Although their movements are purposeful, the birds appear relaxed and unhurried, like long, slow breaths. In times of stress or struggle, gazing at a vulture overhead is a reminder to glide, to sail, to use the prevailing winds.” ~Katie Fallon, from “Vulture, the Private Life of an Unloved Bird”
New World vultures are high-soaring birds that are related to condors, while Old World vultures are closely related to hawks and eagles. New World vultures are thought to have evolved from storks. Our local vultures are scavengers of dead or dying animals, not predators like raptors which kill their prey. While vultures are not generally considered cute or cuddly and they do have some odd behaviors, they are known to be docile and playful plus they are a vital part of nature’s clean-up crew. They are wildlife we should care about.
The town of Fuquay-Varina is host to a resident population of black vultures (Coragyps atratus). These large birds have lived near downtown for a long time (one town staff person mentioned having seen them for more than 40 years). In recent years, towards sunset, on the south side of downtown, people have watched successive flights of these vultures sailing overhead on their way to their communal roosts each evening. During the day, they were occasionally seen gathering on the ground in large groupings, feeding on roadkill or playing dead “squirrel-ball.”
Black vultures have compact bodies with sooty black plumage and short tails, bare black heads, and white star markings under their broad wingtips. Near town, we also see the larger, eagle-sized turkey vultures (Cathartes aura), which have longer wings, brownish-black bodies with contrasting gray flight feathers and tails (which the vultures bite to keep short and out of their food), and they have bare but bright red-colored heads. Both are federally protected species of migratory birds.
In flight, black vultures have a tucked M-shape to their silhouettes and powerful wingbeats angled slightly forward, while turkey vultures have V-shaped teetering flights. Neither flap their wings much—they soar on rising columns of warm air called thermals. “The two species often associate: the black vulture makes up for its poor sense of smell by following turkey vultures to carcasses. They soar high in the sky and keep an eye on the lower-soaring turkey vultures.” (Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology)
Katie Fallon calls vultures the “birds of life, birds of rebirth.” By feeding on carrion, vultures help to get rid of dead animals which could spread diseases, such as anthrax, botulism, cholera and salmonella. Their sharp, hooked beaks allow them to tear apart meat and their strong immune systems allow them to eat rotting and possibly infected meat, usually without getting sick. “Their stomachs have strong enzymes that kill off dangerous toxins and microorganisms.” (Wildlife Center of Virginia) One odd but useful behavior vultures do is called “urohydrosis” where they defecate on their own feet to get rid of harmful bacteria they might pick up while feeding on carcasses. Doing so also cools their skin. Neat, huh?
The Sky Temple in Tibet should be mentioned here. It’s where burials, known as “jhator,” meaning “giving alms to the birds,” take place. Himalayan vultures (called “angels”) are invited to feed on human flesh and anything that remains is burned and offered to the sky through ritual. Matthew Carney wrote in 2017 that “Tibetans see it as a last gift to the universe—a way to show the insignificance and the impermanence of our earthly lives.”
The digestive capabilities of vultures are amazing, but contamination in their food sources has impacts. According to the Hawk Mountain Global Raptor Conservation organization, carcasses that vultures feed on “may have pesticides, toxins such as lead shot and drugs. As a result, vultures are twice as likely to be globally threatened as are raptors in general.” Except for the California Condor, the most endangered vultures occur in the Old World (there are 22 species of vultures in both the New and Old World).
People have long interacted with vultures. Some love them, some hate them (and some want them as our town mascot and think we should celebrate them and sell vulture stuffed animals as town souvenirs…but excuse the digression). A stone age flute found in Germany was carved from a griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus) bone that was some 40,000 years old, linking vultures to the development of human-made music. Many vulture body parts have been used as talismans and medicine, and vultures are present in many Greek and Roman myths and legends. The oldest known representation of a vulture was carved on a stone about 11,000 years ago in Turkey.
Vultures frequently appear as dark symbols of doom, especially in the movies (think cowboys and the Old West), and in artwork. For example, they are featured in Walt Disney’s 1937 animated film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in which they follow the Evil Queen and appear to sense imminent death. In Disney’s 1940 film, “Fantasia,” for the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment, the God of Evil emerges from the mountain to summon his minions, including ghosts, demons, hags, harpies and vultures. Vultures also appear in Disney‘s “Robin Hood” (1973), “The Jungle Book” (1967), “Ice Age 2: The Meltdown” (2006), and “Horton Hears a Who!” (2008). Vultures on screen are usually Old World birds (the raptor, flesh-tearing kinds) because there are prohibitions on featuring local, protected vultures.
Despite their less-than-glamourous on-screen reputation, vultures are mostly harmless—unless they are bored and tear apart your roof or spot a stillborn farm animal; there have been some issues like these. They can even be sweet (have you met ‘Snoopy’ the local black vulture from the American Wildlife Refuge?). “Vultures are spectacular,” says the Vulture Conservation Foundation, which also notes that they have amazing eyesight, sophisticated communication signals and complex family dynamics, among other cool traits. (The Egyptian vulture, for instance, is a tool user and hammers away at ostrich eggs with stones until the eggs crack open.) And, as already mentioned, the scavenging lifestyle of New World vultures provides many environmental benefits.
Unfortunately, the black vultures in Fuquay-Varina have recently experienced a number of hardships. For decades, these vultures roosted together in a stand of tall trees off Judd Parkway, far off the road and not near any houses, but a condominium development took over that habitat. The vultures shifted to the town’s water towers. Some also roosted at the Town of Holly Springs Ting Park, where they were found to be nuisances.
Some town residents complained that the vultures were messy and noisy. (Although vultures are mostly silent, they make hissing and grunting sounds while feeding and fighting, and a bit of yapping during courtship). Some people apparently want the vultures gone. According to wildlife rehabilitator Steve Stone, who has treated vultures from Fuquay-Varina, around August 2022, two black vultures which were found dead, when tested, were determined to have been poisoned. It is not known who did the poisoning.
Town officials took action to discourage the birds from roosting in the area. A permit was obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which allowed the Town to set out vulture “effigies” (real taxidermied birds), which cost $400 each. Multiple effigies were hung upside down on the water towers. They act as visual “keep away” signs and did appear to have discouraged the vultures from roosting on the towers, but that meant they had to find other roosts in a rapidly developing town.
There’s another reason that the vultures stopped roosting on the water towers. Since about October 2022, the local black vultures have been impacted by the spread of virulent bird flu—specifically “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza,” or HPAI, which has been detected in multiple wild birds at several locations in North Carolina and across the U.S. since it was first detected in January 2022 in a hunter-harvested bird.
According to Sarah Van de Berg, wildlife health biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), the first wild bird mortality in the U.S. was documented here in NC in February 2022 (a snow goose), and Florida had the first documented cases of HPAI in black vultures, but our vultures were first identified as positive in October 2022. She also noted that “49 states have detected HPAI in their borders; Hawaii is the only exception at this point. It’s not ‘many other states’ it’s the entire continental U.S., plus Alaska, plus all 10 Canadian territories, Mexico, and much of Central and South America. It’s also present in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This is a global disease event.”
The USDA has developed a dashboard that displays the results from nationwide avian influenza virus monitoring. The dataset includes both asymptomatic birds that were hunter-harvested as well as some individual wild birds that were symptomatic. Raptors and vultures appear particularly vulnerable to the HPAI strain currently circulating.
According to the NCWRC, avian influenza viruses routinely circulate in wild birds, particularly in waterbirds like geese and ducks, and they are considered natural reservoirs of the virus. Wild birds can be healthy, asymptomatic carriers. The highly pathogenic variant which began circulating recently is of “special concern to the domestic poultry industry as the variant can cause high mortality in chickens, turkeys, etc.” People who keep poultry should not keep out bird feeders or baths.
For people who don’t own poultry, the NCWRC recommends cleaning bird seed feeders and bird baths a minimum of every two weeks with a diluted bleach solution (1-part bleach to 9-parts water) before rinsing and allowing them to air dry completely before refilling. Hummingbird feeders should be cleaned similarly when the nectar is changed, at least twice per week.
While large-scale mortality events in wild birds due to HPAI are reported to be relatively uncommon, several mass deaths of vultures have occurred, both locally and elsewhere in the U.S. According to Sarah Van de Berg, the HPAI virus is expected to continue to circulate in these bird populations for likely years to come. She noted that “the last positive confirmations of H5N1 2.3.4.4b High Path (HPAI) in wild birds that NCWRC submitted for testing was from a small mortality event at the end of February [2023] in Dare County in Razorbills. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been additional mortalities since February but nothing we’ve sent for necropsy since February has been positive.”
The NCWRC does want to hear about morbidity events involving five or more birds in one location, at one time with no obvious cause of death. Contact the Commission’s Wildlife Helpline at 1-866-318-2401, M-F 8 a.m.-5 p.m., or HWI@ncwildlife.org. The wildlife biologist who responds will record the report and decide if further action is warranted.
Regarding other vultures in the U.S.—the largest vulture, in fact—the USDA issued a bulletin on May 16, 2023, stating they were taking actions to protect the endangered California Condors from this highly-pathogenic strain of virus, involving a vaccine. At least 14 condors have died from the virus. A pilot safety study of a vaccine is being conducted in NC on “North American vultures, a similar species, to investigate if there are any adverse effects before giving the vaccine to the endangered condors.” This trial is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Late last year, Fuquay-Varina’s black vultures experienced mass deaths from this HPAI virus. Ms. Van de Berg said, “Black vultures have comprised many HPAI-related mortalities in NC and nationally both in estimated numbers and also distribution. We’ve documented mortality events in North Carolina, mostly smaller scale of 10 individuals or fewer but some larger involving 50+ individuals, in Chatham, Durham, Granville, Guilford, Orange, Rutherford, Union, Wake, and Washington counties since the first event involving NC vultures in October 2022. While there may be some areas where HPAI has visibly reduced the local population, there is evidence that some black vultures do survive this virus and the overall population of black vultures in the state doesn’t appear to be heavily impacted.”
The Wake County listing includes the vulture deaths in Fuquay-Varina, where around 50 expired vultures were found below the water tower on the south side of town. Ms. Van de Berg noted, “The persistent mortality event of black vultures under the Fuquay-Varina water tower was retested and reconfirmed as HPAI (January 2023) and two bald eagles from different locations in Chatham County tested positive (February 2023).”
There could be more incidents than were reported. According to NCWRC conservation biologist Jamie Sasser, tests for the virus in dead birds have generally stopped since it is already known to be present in local wild bird populations.
In good news, avian influenza is typically a colder weather virus, so as the air and water warm up and our birds do less migrating, we should hopefully see fewer cases of HPAI through the spring and summer. There may be fewer black vultures around right now, but they have survived and are living their best vulture lifestyles. They can still be seen around town. Mostly you’ll see turkey vultures, which have not been impacted by HPAI locally (they are less apt to roost communally as the black vultures do, but the USDA dashboard did include some turkey vulture deaths elsewhere such as in FL).
Here’s hoping that they can survive this setback, gain your support and admiration, and continue to grace our skies, capture our imaginations, and keep our streets clean. International Vulture Awareness Day is the first Saturday in September (the web page vultureday.org has lots of information about the vultures of the world and also some fun, downloadable activities). It might be a good time for a Vulture Festival in town, or at least to go outside, look up, and see who is gracefully soaring across the sky.
