BY: LAURA GARRIDO
Vultures–these endangered bald-headed creatures, known for their gluttonous appetite and malicious habits, may be what are preventing disease dissemination. Vultures are known for being bloodthirsty, feasting in blood baths of disease as beaks greedily reach for any piece of meat, intestine or organ they can tear. Even naturalist Charles Darwin deemed them “disgusting… formed to wallow in putridity.” The fact that they have the ability to vomit the entire contents of their stomach to take better flight doesn’t exactly help their image.
However, vultures are the piece in the animal chain that keeps the cycle clean of disease and the environment from carcasses that may take years to decay. It is very unlike a vulture to kill; rather, they scavenge and function as the cleanup and recycling crew of dead animals. Without them, carcasses would begin to rot under the Saharan sun and insect populations would linger and grow, building up pathogens that would spread diseases through animals, livestock, and eventually us. Vultures are specialized to combat these diseases; their guts are highly corrosive and bacteria killing stomach acids make them tolerant to toxins in decaying flesh.
Still, this link in our ecosystem is not as stable as one may think. Like the cuddly polar bears we are so often reminded of in Coca-Cola commercials, the vulture is critically endangered– one species is nearly extinct. As it turns out, agriculture and livestock management is strongly linked to the welfare of vultures. In Kenya’s Maasai Mara region, people exclaim that leasing their land to conservatories has attracted predators such as lions to their livestock. To them, the killing of a single cow represents a loss of 30,000 shillings ($300). In response, the people sprinkle Furudan, a cheap, fast acting pesticide, on the half eaten carcass. The lions then return to feed with their pride, and they quickly fall to sinews of the poison.
A dead vulture is removed from Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve by vulture specialist Simon Thomsett.
Photo by: Charlie Hamilton James
As one can assume, the vultures flock towards what seems to be an easy feast, but are fated to the poison themselves. The same goes for poachers who poison elephants and rhinoceroses with the intent of killing the vultures so they don’t alert game wardens. In Zimbabwean National Park, 500 vultures died from a single poison-laced elephant. On top of that, vultures themselves are poached for their heads; their beaks and brains are dried, mixed with mud and smoked to conjure guidance from beyond.
In Zimbabwean National Park, 500 vultures died from a single poison-laced elephant.
Can the loss of these gruesome birds really have such a negative impact? In India the effects of the population depletion was so alarming because of its perceivable effects. With the lack of scavenger competition and the buildup of dead cattle carcasses, the stray dog population thrived, soaring from 7 million to 29 million in 11 years, carrying with it diseases spread through dog bites. Consequently, cases of deaths from rabies increased by 50,000, costing roughly around 34 billion in mortality and treatment expenses. In response, India banned diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used to treat cattle that was linked to the vulture’s die-off.
Over the next five years, vulture numbers are expected to decline by 70 to 97 percent. These birds, as vile as they may appear, suppress insect populations linked with several diseases. It seems like nature always has a place and reason for the parts of it we find distasteful.
Image sourcing: istock.com, nationalgeographic.com
