On Vultures

Those who know me well know that one of my favorite animals -- if not my favorite -- is the vulture. This has to do with the vulture's ancient associations with the Theotokos and resurrection, and their general docile, social, interspecifically cooperative, quiet behaviors. So, when I found out that there is an American black vulture living in the old farmer's house near the field, I got excited -- two things I love in one place: a vulture and an abandoned building!

The Old Farmhouse

I suppose this shouldn't have been so surprising -- there are quite a lot of vultures in the area. When hot wind hits the cliffs, you can see many vultures having fun surfing the air current. They sure can conserve solar energy! You can watch a particular specimen for quite a while, and you won't see its wings flap.

Black Vulture in Flight

Vultures are an important part of the ecosystem: without vultures to efficiently remove large amounts of decaying meat and other waste, both air and groundwater would show increased contamination. Without vultures, rotting meat would be consumed by other creatures that many humans find undesirable, such as maggots and bacteria. Vultures also prevent the spread of disease by eating and sterilizing contaminated meat. In one study in which vultures were fed disease-causing organisms, including anthrax, it was found that most bacteria were killed in the vultures’ highly acidic stomachs.

New World vultures have very powerful senses of smell (more so than Old World vultures). This has been used to human advantage. Congregating turkey vultures have indicated the location of natural gas leaks to company personnel because the vultures are attracted to the gas mercaptan, which is put into natural gas for safety reasons and smells like decaying meat. Another interesting vulture fact, though it is unrelated to agriculture or the environment, is that German police have looked into using vultures to find missing bodies with their sharp noses and eyes. As Jesus said in Matthew 24:28 (in reference to the Second Coming), "For wherever the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together."

A Trainer with Sherlock the Turkey Vulture, Detective Extraordinaire (Source)

Unfortunately, unlike the docile turkey vulture, the American black vulture is more violent, and has been known to kill young, weak livestock with other black vultures. Coincidentally, an animal has been regularly sneaking into Coop Mitchell at night and killing and eating exactly one chicken. Judging by the mysterious chicken killer's M.O, it doesn't seem to me to be the black vulture in the old farmhouse, since black vultures are diurnal and "create carrion" to eat (as it were) in groups. A flock or black vultures would have a hard time slipping into the coop. I may be wrong, however. Hopefully we'll never have to drive the farmhouse vulture away, since it is a member of such a valuable and interesting species.

#campmitchell #CMAP #environment #spiritualsignificance #me #birds #vultures #chickens