Spokane Audubon meeting will feature conservation challenges of vultures

The Spokane Audubon Society’s Feb. 8 meeting, featuring SAS member Kim Thorburn on the conservation challenges of vultures, will be online only via Zoom.

The Zoom link and details on joining the meeting at 7 p.m. are in the chapter’s February newsletter at www.audubonspokane.org/ the-pygmy-owl.

An avid birder, field volunteer on bird species recovery work and member of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, Thorburn grew up in the Central Valley of California where turkey vultures were a favorite. Her presentation will cover the taxonomy of New World and Old World vultures, many species that are red-listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Thorburn said vultures’ vital ecosystem services as scavengers underlies the threat to their survival and conservation challenges.