Why you should love vultures!

Vultures may not be the prettiest of birds. They are scary and they dine on dead things. But like everything created upon this earth, they have an important and necessary function. There are 23 extant (meaning still alive, as opposed to extinct, no longer living) species of vultures (including the Condors), 16 living species of Old world vultures, restricted to North and South America, and seven unidentified species, all belonging to the Cathartidae Family.

The New World vulture or condor family, Cathartidae, contains seven extant species in five genus (genera). It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in warm and temperate areas of the Americas. The "New World" vultures were widespread in both the Old World and North America during the Neogene.

The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene.

Old World vultures and New World vultures do not form a single clade ( a group of organisms believed to comprise all the evolutionary descendants of a common ancestor) but the two groups are similar in appearance due to convergent evolution.

These birds of prey and scavengers of carrion have a very important job.

Vultures are scavenging birds, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals without apparent ill effects. Bacteria in the food source, pathogenic (causing disease) to other vertebrates, dominate the vulture's gut flora, and vultures benefit from the bacterial breakdown of carrion tissue. Some species of New World vulture have a good sense of smell, whereas Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight. A particular characteristic of many vultures is a bald head, devoid of feathers.

This bare skin is thought to keep the head clean when feeding, and also plays an important role in thermoregulation (regulation of one's own body temperature).

Vultures have been observed to hunch their bodies and tuck in their heads in the cold, and open their wings and stretch their necks in the heat. They also urinate on themselves as a means of cooling their bodies.

A group of vultures in flight is called a 'kettle', while the term 'committee' refers to a group of vultures resting on the ground or in trees. A group of vultures that are feeding is termed a 'wake'.

Vultures and Anthrax

When an animal dies of Anthrax, the blood and body fluids are loaded with Anthrax bacteria, there are more bacteria than red blood corpuscles in the blood. On exposure to the oxygen of the air, they start to form spores, The hardy forms of the anthrax agent can survive for decades in the soil where blood and body fluids from such an animal have spilled.

Vultures, in the demolishing of the dead animal before much of the sporulation can occur, contribute to the reduction of Environmental Contamination of the dead carcass. In theory, the faster the carcass is consumed, the less the chance of sporulation and residual contamination. So the more vultures, the faster the consumption, the faster the consumption, the greater the reduction in the chances of the spread of the disease by flies.

Vultures are equipped with a digestive system that contains special acids which will dissolve anthrax , botulism and the cholera bacteria. Basically that is what renders them immune to such pathogens.

So the next time that we see some vultures having a much welcomed dinner, we may not be so inclined to shoo them away. They are actually saving the environment and our lives.