Happy International Vulture Awareness Day!  Bald is beautiful!.  Why are they bald?  

Happy International Vulture Awareness Day!  Bald is beautiful!.  Why are they bald?  These birds help clean up our environment and keep diseases at bay by eating carcasses.  The bald head helps reduce the places bacteria can hide (such as in feathers) while they are digging in for dinner.  Their adaptations to deal with carrion don’t stop there though.  These birds can literally eat diseases in flesh, and destory them in their guts, that would otherwise contaminate the environment. That’s right, vultures keep humans and other animals healthy!!  

However, most of them are suffering and dying out at human hands, and the world will be much worse off without these incredible birds.   Vultures all over the world are shot and exposed to intentional, and unintentional, lead and chemical contamination of carcasses.  Right now many old world vultures are having their populations devastated by the use of Diclofenac in livestock, which kills vultures soon after they eat from the carcass.  Even if you don’t like vultures, this is a problem directly applicable to humans, with the backlash already wreaking havoc in India.

This post contains photos of vultures I’ve been fortunate to meet over the years. My favorite vulture is, of course, the bearded vulture (aka lammergeier), but I don’t have a photo of a live one, only dead ones (study skins at museums).  I can’t wait until the day I can meet and interact with a live bearded vulture, but that may only happen in captivity if we don’t tackle the dangers of diclofenac, lead, and persecution, and do so quickly.  We are talking vulture species extinctions within the next few years.  

If you are interested in learning more about what services vultures provide for humans (and other animals), and how you can contribute to their conservation and restoration, please visit these websites:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/…/dont-vultures-get-sick-eat…/
http://www.peregrinefund.org/projects/asian-vulture-crisis
https://www.justgiving.com/africanvultures/
http://projectvulture.org.za/