Why are Turkey Vultures Protected in the United States?
Turkey vultures are a common sight across much of the United States circling gracefully on their large wings or perched regally atop power poles and tree branches. But despite their abundance these unique birds are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes harming, killing, or possessing turkey vultures illegal without permits.
So why are turkey vultures specially shielded by law, even when they sometimes cause problems near homes and livestock operations? There are several ecological and practical reasons behind their protected status.
Turkey Vultures Provide Critical Scavenging Services
The primary rationale for defending turkey vultures is their invaluable role as nature’s clean-up crew. As scavengers, turkey vultures feast exclusively on dead animal remains, or carrion. They use their keen eyesight and extraordinary sense of smell to locate and consume carcasses efficiently.
Without vultures performing this function, animal bodies would decompose slowly across the landscape, posing risks to health and spreading bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. But turkey vultures have specialized digestive systems allowing them to neutralize dangerous microbes. By rapidly ridding areas of decaying remains, these birds curb contamination and disease.
In this way, turkey vultures offer a free waste disposal service that benefits ecosystems, wildlife, livestock, and people. Protecting them ensures these essential services continue.
Vultures Suppress Livestock Diseases
On cattle ranches and farms, turkey vultures help control infectious outbreaks like anthrax and rabies by quickly scavenging animal carcasses before pathogens propagate. Research shows properties with abundant vulture populations experience far lower rates of deadly livestock diseases compared to areas lacking these scavengers.
Uncontrolled Disease Risks Without Vultures
When vulture populations decline or disappear, major disease risks emerge, as India experienced when white-backed vultures were decimated in the 1990s. With no vultures left, uncontrolled rotting animal remains led to an explosion of rabies in dogs and a surge in human rabies deaths. This example shows the vital disease prevention role vultures play.
Turkey Vultures Have Limited Impacts on Livestock
While turkey vultures prefer to eat decaying carcasses, some rare reports have emerged of them directly attacking vulnerable livestock. However, these cases appear very uncommon, likely because vultures lack the sharp talons needed to kill live prey. Overall, their scavenging brings enormous benefits for livestock health.
Vultures Form Crucial Food Chain Links
As all-consuming scavengers, turkey vultures provide an essential link in ecological food webs. They convert waste from already-deceased animals into energy and nutrients that in turn nourish other living components of the ecosystem. This cycling of energy is vital for sustaining balanced food chains.
Federal Protection Acknowledges Ecological Value
By legally defending turkey vultures under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, federal regulations acknowledge these birds’ tremendous ecosystem services and their limited conflicts with human interests. Shielding them helps maintain stable populations able to provide continual scavenging benefits.
State and Local Protections for Vultures
In addition to federal laws, some states and cities have enacted extra rules protecting turkey vultures:
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California – Fully protected, with fines up to $5000 for harming vultures.
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Florida – Year-round state protection with penalties for killing vultures.
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Tucson, AZ – City code safeguards vulture nests as valuable sentinel nests.
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Howard County, MD – Zoning laws prohibit vulture nest disturbances.
So protections vary locally, with some areas going beyond federal baselines to defend vultures year-round.
Threats Facing Turkey Vultures
While overall turkey vulture populations remain strong, concerning threats put their future at risk:
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Vehicle and aircraft collisions
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Ingestion of lead bullets in carcasses
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Habitat destruction
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Persecution by people
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Disease outbreaks
Ongoing conservation efforts will be critical to offset these threats and maintain turkey vultures’ vital ecological roles.
Turkey Vultures Deserve Protection
Some view turkey vultures as ominous or unpleasant, but these scavengers provide an invaluable service in cleaning our landscapes and preventing contagious illnesses. Their ecological importance and minimal costs warrant federal shields despite occasional annoyances. Appreciating the unseen benefits of turkey vultures can inspire expanded efforts to understand and conserve these captivating creatures overhead.
What is an Animal Ambassador?
The Maryland Zoo refers to its special collection of education program animals as “Animal Ambassadors.” The Zoo currently cares for more than 60 Animal Ambassadors, representing more than 40 species, both native and exotic. These animals are managed separately from the rest of the Zoo’s collection and cannot be seen on exhibit at the Zoo. However, many can be seen up close and personal on a rotating basis at Creature Encounters, the Zoo’s outdoor education center; at camp and school programs at the Zoo; as featured participants in community-based Outreach programs; and at special events on and off Zoo grounds.
Animal Ambassadors spend countless hours working with their human handlers, developing bonds of trust and communication that will allow them to appear in front of audiences large and small. They are not show animals. They behave naturally, focusing audiences’ attention on their natural behaviors and adaptations and giving living, breathing meaning to concepts and topics that students may be studying.
Animal Ambassadors travel all over the state of Maryland and beyond, and many also make local and national media appearances, educating about wildlife while representing the Zoo and its commitments to animal welfare and conservation.
“How I live there”
Turkey vultures are commonly sighted near roadways, open areas such as farms and countryside, and in places where garbage and food are plentiful such as trash heaps, dumps, landfills, and construction sites. At night, they roost in trees or on rock ledges and other high places (including roofs). They often roost in large groups and migrate in even larger groups that may number in the thousands.
First thing in the morning, you may see turkey vultures standing with outstretched wings, presumably warming or drying them in the sun. During the day, they forage for food either on their own or in small groups. They look for carrion and almost never attack live prey. They tend to congregate near dumpsters and roadkill. More than one turkey vulture may gather at a carcass but they take turns feeding, with one chasing others off until it has had its fill. Other species of vulture and raptor may also turn up and, despite their large size, turkey vultures are easily intimidated by competing scavengers.
New World vultures–those from North and South America–are either bald or have very few feathers on their heads. This adaptation allows them to clean themselves more efficiently after scavenging raw meat. All vultures also have strong stomach enzymes and apparently excellent immune systems that allow them to digest rotting meat without contracting botulism or other bacterial illnesses.
If you look up in the sky and see a huge bird that you think might be an eagle but you notice that it is making wobbly circles with its broad wings raised in a V, it is most likely a turkey vulture. Soaring low to the ground or up high on heat thermals, turkey vultures use their keen senses of sight and smell to detect fresh carcasses on the ground, even those that are not visible from the air. The part of their brains dedicated to processing smell is known to be exceptionally large compared to other birds.
The word vulture probably comes from the Latin vellere, which means to pluck or to tear. The scientific name for turkey vulture is more pleasantly poetic. Cathartesaura means “golden purifier.” The colloquial term for vulture in the U.S. is “buzzard.”
Turkey vultures have few natural predators. They can suffer persecution by people who consider them a nuisance or, misguidedly, carriers of disease. (Vultures actually help reduce rather than promote disease.) They can also be poisoned by ingesting meat contaminated by poison or lead shot.
Turkey vultures will feed and roost near humans but prefer to nest in remote, undisturbed areas. They seek out protected rock crevices, caves, hollow logs, fallen trees, or abandoned mammal burrows, nests, or buildings. They do not build nests; rather, females scrape out a slight depression. They lay 1-3 eggs per clutch and incubate the eggs for 28-40 days. After hatching, chicks will stay in the nest for up to 3 months and both parents will care for them. Even after chicks have fledged, family groups will stay together for a few more months. Juveniles are easily recognized by their dark heads and beaks.
Turkey vultures are currently listed as a species of “least concern” by the IUCN, the world’s leading conservation organization. Their population declined during the 20th century, due in part to exposure to the fertilizer DDT, but turkey vultures have since made a comeback across their entire range. They are protected by state law in Maryland and by the federal Migratory Bird Act of 1918. It is illegal to take, kill, or possess a turkey vulture in the U.S., and these birds are protected by similar laws in Canada and Mexico.
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Subphylum: Vertebrata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Accipitriformes
- Family: Cathartidae
- Genera: Cathartes
- Species: aura
Are Turkey Vultures A Protected Species? – Biology For Everyone
FAQ
Why are turkey vultures a protected species?
Vultures are migratory birds that are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, vultures are sometimes associated with problems, such as agricultural and property damage and health and safety concerns.
What is the penalty for killing a turkey vulture?
In the USA it is illegal to take, kill, or possess Turkey Vultures, and violation of the law is punishable by a fine of up to 15,000 US dollars and imprisonment of up to six months.
Why are turkey vultures illegal to shoot?
Vultures are a federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This means that the birds, their nests, and eggs cannot be killed or destroyed without a Migratory Bird Depredation Permit (see permit information below). It is perfectly legal to harass vultures and use effigies to scare them away.
What are the benefits of turkey vultures?
Turkey Vultures play an important role in the health of our ecosystems. As nature’s clean-up crews, they help eliminate rotting carcasses, which helps control the spread of certain diseases and generally helps the air smell a lot better!
Are turkey vultures protected?
The turkey vulture species receives special legal protections under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 in the United States, by the Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in Canada, and by the Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds and Game Mammals in Mexico.
Are vultures protected?
Vultures are a federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This means that the birds, their nests, and eggs cannot be killed or destroyed without a Migratory Bird Depredation Permit (see permit information below). It is perfectly legal to harass vultures and use effigies to scare them away. Why are black vultures protected?
Can you kill turkey vultures without a permit?
No. Turkey vultures are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits killing, hunting, or harming them without a permit. There are up to $15,000 in fines for violating the MBTA. However, some illegal killing still occurs.
Are vultures protected by the migratory bird treaty act?
Vultures are migratory birds that are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, vultures are sometimes associated with problems, such as agricultural and property damage and health and safety concerns.
Can turkey vultures be held in captivity?
The turkey vulture can be held in captivity, though the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prevents this in the case of uninjured animals or animals capable of returning to the wild. In captivity, it can be fed fresh meat, and younger birds will gorge themselves if given the opportunity.
Are turkey vultures endangered?
Illinois – Fully protected as endangered/threatened species under Wildlife Code. Illegal to harass or kill. – Several other states (e.g. Virginia, Pennsylvania) – Turkey vultures are designated species of special concern, which prohibits direct persecution.