On the prairies of America, conflicts often unfold in the treetops, where opportunistic predators watch from above. Instead of attacking living animals, these predators fight over corpses. However, this war is equally brutal, as it extends from the wilderness to nearby farms, where livestock are quickly targeted by vultures in place of wild animals. This is how millions of vultures impact American agriculture.
Vultures have long been considered a nuisance in the American South. They appear everywhere—on balconies, roofs, and they are even known to destroy car windshield wipers in the area. Occasionally, vultures cause collisions in the air, and as farm clashes increase, some ranchers are desperate for help. Vultures display complex behaviors and can adapt to any human-dominated landscape. They have many advantages over invasive species on the ground, easily expanding their range and contributing to increasing conflicts between humans and vultures.
The diverse ecosystem and their ability to move at high altitudes help vultures respond to changes in the availability of essential resources such as food and habitat conditions. These opportunistic predators can feed in terrestrial or aquatic environments. They often hunt their prey on open ground by hovering about 200 feet off the ground. Although the turkey vulture typically migrates, it may stay during mild winters. Turkey vultures typically live in open plains, deserts, or forests, with groups of up to 70 birds or more roosting in trees and leaving when warmer air makes it easier for them to fly.
In Spain, it is estimated that vultures can remove up to 200 tons of bones and more than 8,300 tons of rotting meat each year. The rapid consumption of livestock carcasses significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, this process saves the costs associated with collecting and transporting carcasses to processing plants. Vultures not only clean up animal carcasses lying around in fields but also wild animal carcasses. In fact, vultures are nature’s scavengers, cleaning corpses, purifying pathogens, and preventing the spread of disease.
At the same time, vultures also contribute to nutrient recycling and help control populations of facultative scavengers such as foxes. Compared to this carcass cleaning machine on the step, vultures are much more useful. They also provide cultural and spiritual services dating back thousands of years, along with entertainment services in the form of ecotourism. For example, vultures are well taken care of in certain nature reserves, and it is estimated that the potential value of vulture viewing at a nature reserve in Israel is more than $1 million, with 85% of visitors returning specifically to see the vultures.
By adapting to human-dominated landscapes and efficiently cleaning up carcasses, vultures play a critical role in maintaining ecological balance and public health, even as they continue to pose challenges to farmers and communities in the American South.
