IVAD International Vulture Awareness Day

[jhjimbo]

Did you know a Vulture can fly over a forest canopy and smell the carrion on the forest floor ?
AEF has a resident Vulture named Lill and she is 31 years old.

[pineywoods]

I have a great deal of admiration, if not affection, for vultures. They are a great clean-up crew and I have spent a lot of peaceful time watching them soar the thermals.

When I was a kid, I remember a barber shop argument as to whether buzzards found carrion by sight or by smell. The guy arguing for smell told of a fellow who had a bad problem with rats in his attic and put out some particularly strong poison which left him with an attic full of dead, stinking rats, and the buzzards were soon circling his house. He figured that since there was no way for the vultures to see the carcasses, he had a lock on the argument, but the other guy said that the answer was simple---that they could see the flies trying to get into the attic.

We know the answer now, but it was a good argument.

[Gary Devine]

Bears can smell dead things from a far distance.

[MattM37]

I have a great deal of admiration, if not affection, for vultures. They are a great clean-up crew and I have spent a lot of peaceful time watching them soar the thermals.

When I was a kid, I remember a barber shop argument as to whether buzzards found carrion by sight or by smell. The guy arguing for smell told of a fellow who had a bad problem with rats in his attic and put out some particularly strong poison which left him with an attic full of dead, stinking rats, and the buzzards were soon circling his house. He figured that since there was no way for the vultures to see the carcasses, he had a lock on the argument, but the other guy said that the answer was simple---that they could see the flies trying to get into the attic.

We know the answer now, but it was a good argument.

I still think the flies play a role. Nature would not have made them brightly colored otherwise (the ones I see on carcasses are always those bright green ones). Maybe that's for the benefit of crows and other scavengers who don't have the sense of smell the buzzard has ...?